


Nature of the Beast

by Lomonaaeren



Series: Nature of the Beast [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Defiance, Draco Is Very Impressed With Himself, Harry Is Unimpressed, M/M, Pureblood Culture, Social Construction, Veela, Veela Draco
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-26
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-02-10 12:50:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 41
Words: 126,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2025777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco Malfoy knows how the world is supposed to go; he is a dominant Veela, with a submissive mate. It’s rather a surprise to find out that his mate is Harry Potter. It’s much more of one to find out that Harry, having been raised by Muggles, does <i>not</i> know how the world is supposed to go, and has no interest in being a submissive mate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Medallions and Mates

**Author's Note:**

> This will probably be between twenty-five and thirty chapters.

Draco slowly turned around and looked down at the center of his chest, where the heavy silver medallion that was the first gift to his mate hung. He knew it looked handsome—his mother, watching him with intensely critical eyes, would have told him already if it didn’t—but he wanted to make sure one more time.  
  
Yes. The medallion was made of solid silver except for the faceted crystal in the center, which was shaped like an eye. Gentle, wavering rays, carved grooves, led from the crystal out to the sides of the medallion. Finally, a fine net of cloth of gold studded with more tiny crystals floated over the top of the medallion, connected to the gold chain that bound it around Draco’s neck and protecting the center from any shattering fall.  
  
“It looks magnificent,” said Narcissa, with a long, slow nod. “ _You_ look magnificent. I don’t know how Potter could resist.”  
  
“Well, some token resistance is traditional,” Draco allowed, and then smiled and spread his wings. They had been a nuisance at first, manifesting on the thirty-first of July, his mate’s eighteenth birthday, along with the knowledge of who his mate was, and not going away ever since. But it was September now, and Draco had got used to them. Besides, under ordinary circumstances they would have been here a year earlier, when they both came of age.  
  
Draco was…rather glad that there had been one way in which his mating would defy tradition.  
  
His wings were three times longer than his body, long, narrow, and pointed like a gull’s, but glinting with soft silvery light from the inside. Draco touched the largest feather on the edge of his left one, and shivered. They were sensitive to his touch. He could barely imagine what would happen when his mate caressed them.  
  
“But such beauty is not,” his mother replied, and that silenced some of his doubts.  
  
Draco smiled more broadly and looked down again. Yes, the medallion was ready. Yes, the courting costume, a set of white robes with a long drape of silver cloth in front and a broad gap in the upper back for his wings, was ready. There was really nothing lacking but a sufficiently noble and dramatic moment for Draco to claim his mate.  
  
Draco had thought and thought about that, turning possible moments over in his mind, and rejecting most of them. Harry Potter had lived through more high drama than ninety-nine percent of the wizards his age. It wouldn’t be easy to impress him.  
  
Of course, once Draco really staked his claim, Harry would sink to his knees, trembling with desire and abjection, but Draco hadn’t done that yet.  
  
Finally, the news had made his decision for him. The Ministry was giving Harry his Order of Merlin, First Class, for “incredible services to the wizarding world” in the Atrium this morning. Draco had had two days to get ready, and now it was an hour away from eleven, when the ceremony was set to begin.  
  
“Yes, magnificent,” his mother reassured him again.  
  
“I hope so.” Draco turned to face the large mirror he had installed in the wall of this sitting room two days earlier. “Because I have someone magnificent to claim.”  
  
*  
  
Harry scratched at the collar of his dress robes. The Ministry official who was in charge of him until the Order of Merlin was officially presented immediately began to fuss around him, checking, Harry thought, both the hang of his robes and the proportion of gleaming silver thread in his hems and cuffs against some regulation rule she had in her head.  
  
“I’m sorry if they’re uncomfortable,” she said. “I  _told_ you to go in for a fitting more than once.”  
  
Harry managed to shrug and settle the heavy, forest-green robes more or less properly, so that they only dragged at his shoulders and arms instead of his whole body. “It’s okay, Lantha.”  
  
“Don’t say okay, and  _don’t_ call me Lantha. You remember what you’re supposed to say when they present the Order to you?”  
  
Harry grinned at her instead of answering, which made her sigh and stalk over to the entrance to the little anteroom off the Atrium where Harry had been told to wait. So he just grinned at her back instead. Amalantha Highdream was the Ministry official who was apparently in charge of everyone’s robes and positioning on important occasions, and Harry thought it was driving her crazy to have just one person to shepherd.  
  
For all that, she wasn’t so bad. She did care about whether he was comfortable, and her scolding reminded Harry a lot of Hermione. She was one of the few pure-bloods he’d met who seemed convinced that  _anyone_ could be pure and righteous and beautiful. They just needed her help, most of the time.  
  
“All right, it’s starting,” said Amalantha abruptly, in a hushed, reverent voice that made Harry shift his weight again. She turned around and smiled at him, but there was still a trace of anxiety on her face, which was long and thin enough to remind Harry of Aunt Petunia’s. Luckily, her eyes, big and blue and kind, killed a lot of the resemblance. “You’re sure that you remember what you’re supposed to say?”  
  
“Do you want me to recite it?” Harry asked. “You know, just to make sure.”  
  
“No time, here they  _are_ ,” said Amalantha, and towed him out of the anteroom, leaving Harry to chuckle to himself.  
  
Once they were in the Atrium, of course, Amalantha let him go and turned to stare at Harry expectantly. Harry knew why. He had trained and let other people coach him, but he was the one who had to make the people here believe that he wanted the Order of Merlin, First Class.  
  
And he sort of did. It was just that it would make other people happy, and open some doors, but it wouldn’t bring the dead back. It wouldn’t end the threat of those few Death Eaters who were still free. It wouldn’t settle the boiling of the wizarding world back into peace.  
  
It was something that  _could_ do some good, though. So Harry arranged his mouth in a smile, and walked forwards.  
  
The Minister, Kingsley Shacklebolt, stood at the very front of the line. Harry could tell he wanted to smile madly himself, from the way his mouth twitched, but he managed to hold a distant expression. Not many other people did. Head Auror Robards was very nearly smug, since most people knew that Harry wanted to become an Auror someday, and Amalantha stood behind Robards with her hands clasped and her mouth moving in what looked like silent prayers, and Hermione and Ron were grinning and waving from the line of “lesser” important people. They were going to receive the Order of Merlin, Second Class, when Harry was done with his.  
  
Harry thought they deserved the First Class, but there were some things that people wouldn’t listen to him on no matter how loud his voice was in the wizarding world in general.  
  
Further down the Atrium were the ordinary spectators who for some reason had their hearts set on seeing Harry get the Order of Merlin. Amalantha had said that the ceremonies were usually small and private, but Harry saw at least a hundred wizards there, and probably more.  
  
Harry grimaced. He understood the reporters, of course, but he didn’t understand the people who would wait all day for just a small glimpse of him getting a pretty ordinary medal pinned to his chest. People were weird.  
  
But even that, he was learning to deal with. He really wanted peace. He knew that he couldn’t get it alone. Other people would have to help. So he was doing some of what they wanted, and speaking out when reporters interviewed him, and all the rest of the political game. If it got some attention paid to causes he was passionate about, then he could pay that price.  
  
He turned to Kingsley, who shook his hand. Kingsley’s own prepared speech was first, and all Harry would have to do was interject the thanks and the acknowledgements in the right places. He prepared to let his mind drift a bit.  
  
Then there was a disturbance from the one of the fireplaces, and Harry whirled around, his hand falling to the wand at his belt. Had a Death Eater just Flooed in? They’d got threats to disrupt the ceremony, of course. Fenrir Greyback liked to threaten people.  
  
A bunch of Aurors immediately swooped in around Harry, meaning he couldn’t see. He tried to crane his neck to see over Robards’s shoulder, but Robards shook his head and backed towards Harry.  
  
“It’s better if you’re safe,” he called back.  
  
Harry frowned, unimpressed. Yes, he could understand that, but he probably had more battle experience than a lot of the Aurors did. He could at least help. Or, failing that, he needed to see what was going on so that he would have a chance to move towards the right exit or stand his ground and fight, instead of just moving around blindly.  
  
This time, it seemed that the person who had come through the Floo was confusing the Aurors. Harry heard murmured questions, most of which seemed to center on the question, “What’s  _he_ doing here?”  
  
 _Not Fenrir Greyback, then._ But it left a lot of other questions as to who it could be, from someone recently pardoned to Rufus Scrimgeour back from the dead. Harry saw a gap between Robards and the tall Auror next to him, and wriggled forwards, finally managing to stick his head out and look at the Floo.  
  
He felt his mouth fall open, and not because he didn’t recognize the figure who was walking slowly down the middle of the Atrium.  
  
It was someone recently pardoned—Draco Malfoy, whose trial had been less than a month ago. Harry had pleaded for mercy because Malfoy hadn’t betrayed him to the Snatchers, and while he was a Death Eater, he was so incompetent that he wasn’t that much of a threat to anyone. The Wizengamot had listened to him and granted Malfoy his freedom, with the provision that if he was found to have committed another crime, he would go immediately to Azkaban.  
  
Malfoy had seemed pretty normal then, if quiet. And he had stared at Harry intently all the way through his trial. Harry had put it down to Malfoy resenting the life-debts he owed Harry, and the fact that now he owed his freedom to Harry as well, and shrugged it off.  
  
Now, he wondered if Malfoy had begun the process of going mental during the trial. It would explain the clothes he was wearing now, and the slow parade he was making down the middle of the Atrium, one hand clasped over the huge amulet around his throat. Harry noticed that some other wizards were drawing back and murmuring. Maybe it was a catching madness, he thought, and the amulet was the sign of it. Or the completely white clothes were. Or the huge eagle wings sticking out of his shoulders.  
  
Harry blinked. He had to admit this was entertaining, and not exactly threatening, or the Aurors would have struck before now.  
  
He was amused until exactly the moment when Malfoy halted in front of him and turned slowly towards him. Until then, he had been gazing straight ahead, his eyes fixed on some distant horizon, but having them locked on him, Harry bristled. Malfoy looked at him like he was _property_ or something.  
  
“Harry Potter,” Malfoy whispered. “I have come to claim you as my submissive mate.” His hands rose to the golden chain around his throat that linked to the amulet and unhooked it via some clasp Harry couldn’t see in the back. Then he moved towards Harry, his wings spread, holding out the amulet.  
  
That settled it: Malfoy was mental.  
  
Harry didn’t wait until Malfoy actually dropped the amulet over his head, because unlike some people, he didn’t need any prompting to defend himself against crazy bastards. He whipped his wand out and held it towards the amulet, which halted, swinging, in midair, while Malfoy stared at him like he’d been Stupefied.   
  
“Put that thing down,” Harry said coldly. “I think someone’s Confounded you. What’s this nonsense about me being your mate?”  
  
Malfoy blinked, and for the first time, his wings, which had been held straight and trembling out to the sides, fell down and just dangled around him like silly robes. He looked back and forth. Harry didn’t know if he was looking for allies that should have accompanied him, and which would maybe drag Harry forwards and force him to kneel. He didn’t wait to find out.  
  
“ _Finite Incantatem_ ,” he said, as clearly and loudly as he could. Let everyone see that he hadn’t hurt Malfoy, even though he had come up and acted strange. Times were different now that Harry didn’t have to constantly look over his shoulder for Voldemort. He could assume that even Malfoy was an innocent victim of a prank.  
  
But nothing happened other than a shimmer or two of magic fading from the medallion. Malfoy looked perfectly furious a second later, though. Harry relaxed. Maybe the Confundus Charm had been subtle, and wouldn’t break visibly.  
  
“I  _made_ that for you,” said Malfoy, nodding at the medallion. “The way a Veela claiming a submissive mate should.”  
  
“I still have no idea what you’re on about,” Harry told him, but he could feel a faint sinking sensation in his chest. It seemed that he had leaped straight into the middle of another strange situation where life was going to turn on him because apparently he tasted  _that_ good to bad luck. “Veela, submissive mates. You’re not a Veela and none of them I ever saw ran around with wings and medallions like this.”  
  
“Harry, I know something.”  
  
That was Hermione, of course, pressing up next to him. Harry opened his mouth to tell her that he was glad someone knew  _something_ , but a second voice interrupted Hermione a moment later.  
  
“You don’t. Not enough to tell Harry what to do now.”  
  
Ron walked up and stood next to Harry. He had his arms wrapped around his chest and he was hunched over as if he was cold. Harry stared at him; Hermione gaped at him. But Ron paid no attention to either of them, instead meeting Malfoy’s eyes as though this was a secret shared between them.  
  
“Growing his wings like that means he’s the dominant Veela, the one who’s supposed to be able to fly and protect his vulnerable, earthbound mate.” Ron grimaced a little, but still didn’t look away from Malfoy. “And he’s the one who makes the gifts and begins the courtship process. If he’s dominant, the person he’s courting must be submissive. That’s the way it is. Gender doesn’t matter. Blood doesn’t matter.”  
  
He turned to Harry and shook his head. “Sorry, mate. But that’s the way it is. You’re submissive.”  
  
“Really?” Harry asked, his gut beginning to churn and his voice coming out a lot colder than he had ever spoken to his best friend. “Even though I don’t feel  _any_ urge to crawl on my belly or kiss his feet?”  
  
“I would not require that of you,” said Malfoy, his wings fluttering now as though he was trying to pick something up with the tips. “Not immediately.”  
  
Ron finally seemed to wake up. Color flooded his cheeks, and he blinked. “Really, mate? Nothing?”  
  
“Nothing,” Harry said, and gave a short laugh when Ron stared at him. “When have I ever submitted to  _anything_ tamely?”  
  
“Not ever,” said Ron, and frowned. “I didn’t think—” He glanced at Malfoy. “But he’s a dominant Veela. Only the dominants ever have wings like that. And that means that you  _have_ to be the submissive. He wouldn’t be mistaken about who his mate is, either. Veela always know.”  
  
Harry shrugged, uncaring. “Maybe they can be mistaken sometimes. The only thing I know is that I’m not attracted to him, and I’m not submissive, and you’re the only one who’s allowed to call me mate.”  
  
“I would never have come to you if I was unsure,” Malfoy broke in, his cheeks a furious pink. “You  _are_ my mate, Potter. And what Weasley said is true.” He lifted his wings, and the light reflected from them the way it would from a silver Shield Charm. Harry blinked. “You should be—you should want my protection. You should know the rightness of becoming mine the instant you look into my eyes.”  
  
Harry lifted his head and stared into Malfoy’s eyes. It went on and on, until Malfoy expelled his breath in a ragged pant. Harry realized he’d been holding it.  
  
“No,” said Harry at last. “Sorry. No urges to give up my will or my wand or my independence or anything else. Find someone else, Malfoy.” He turned away, shaking his head, wondering what the papers would print about  _this_ tomorrow. Yet another thing he had never heard of, like Horcruxes, that wanted to doom him. Except, this time, there was no prophecy that said he had to be Malfoy’s mate.  
  
He got two steps away when the shadow of wings fell across him. He didn’t have time to duck before Malfoy, with a furious screech, swooped down on him.


	2. Fates and Fears

Draco came down on Potter with his mind blazing and his hands curving in front of him like talons. How  _dare_ he deny Draco, how  _dare_ he hold back and be different just the way that he was always doing and humiliate Draco in public—  
  
But Potter had rolled as Draco landed on him, and Draco didn’t simply bear him to the floor the way he’d planned. Instead, he found Potter’s wand jammed into his neck, and Draco gasped out and tried to catch a breath. His wings beat frantically, holding most of his weight up in the air. He pulled away from the wand at last.  
  
That gave him another problem, though. Without most of his weight on Potter, Potter sprang to his feet again, and retreated through a fairly wide space. His mouth was open in what looked like a snarl. Draco’s skin crawled as he stared into Potter’s teeth. Potter looked as if he would lunge and tear through Draco’s feathers instead of caressing them. Draco found himself landing and shrinking back, pulling his wings in close to his body.  
  
Then he felt what he was doing, and anger ripped away his fear.  
  
 _Dominant Veela do not yield._  
  
He spread his wings out again, and said in a voice that felt strangled with his rage, “Do you realize that we’re in public, Potter? That you could earn a violent reputation for attacking someone who has the right to claim you?”  
  
“I don’t know about Veela having the right,” said Potter, and his eyes and his snarl that made him look so uncouth didn’t disappear. “I never heard of it. Do  _you_ realize that you just attacked me in public, and that if I pressed charges, your feathered little arse would be in Azkaban this time tomorrow?”  
  
Draco stared back at him in silence. He really had no idea what to say. Mates didn’t—mates weren’t—  
  
“You don’t need to insult me like that,” he finally whispered. The insults  _hurt_ , sinking into his body as though Potter had jabbed shards of glass into his abdomen. Mates didn’t insult their Veela, that was the most important thing. Maybe they did fight and resist sometimes, although Draco had never heard of such a thing. But he and Potter had a history, and that would make some things different.  
  
 _Perhaps. Why did I have to be the exception?_  
  
The insults, though, made Draco want to tear his wings off. He caught his breath and said, “Please don’t insult me like that,” in what he thought was a more normal tone of voice.  
  
“Why not?” Potter glared at him. He was standing there with his elbow cocked and his wand still aimed at Draco. His friends stood behind him, gaping. Everyone else in the Atrium watched with breathless interest. Draco’s cheeks burned to think that this would be all over the papers tomorrow. Of course, he had  _wanted_ it to be when he thought he would be claiming Potter, but… “You insulted me. You said that I should crawl at your feet, and you expected me to just accept this strange medallion being put over my head. You should have known how I would react to that, when I get poisoned gifts all the time.”  
  
The feathers on the edges of Draco’s wings stood straight up and solidified; Draco felt their weight grow. He screeched this time, a low, rising sound that tore out of his chest. Potter stared at him some more.  
  
“Who did that to you?” Draco whispered. He knew, somewhere at the forefront of his mind, that he should be more concerned about the fact of Potter’s resistance and the fact of their eagerly watching audience, but right now,  _right at this moment,_ all he could think was that Potter had been hurt by other people who had no right to do that to Draco’s chosen.  
  
“Lots of people,” said Potter slowly. “I can’t give you all their names. The Aurors handled some of the cases. Why do you care, anyway?”  
  
“It’s my part to  _protect_ you.” Draco held up his hands, partially because he wanted to rejoice in feeling that particular weight for the first time, and partially to show Potter the claws that his fingernails had curved into. “As your dominant, I have to be the one who stands up in front of dangers and says that they can’t come any further to harm you. That’s what I want to do. What I was born for.”  
  
He felt as if he could balance atop the flow of fury through him now, the way he could dance atop a lava flow with his wings. How  _dare_ someone turn against the man who had made this peace possible, who was Draco’s? He could find them and tear them apart like paper. He could part steel walls and wards like curtains of grass to get to them. His wings and his pulse and his breath all trembled in response to the same rhythm.  
  
“Malfoy. You don’t even  _know_ me.”  
  
“I know that you’re my mate. That’s all I need to know.”  
  
Potter stared back at him wordlessly, and then his friend Granger stepped forwards and interfered. Draco showed her his teeth and the edges of his wings, but she didn’t seem impressed.  
  
“You’re holding up the ceremony,” she said. “Let’s let the Ministry do what needs to be done, and then maybe we can go somewhere and talk about this.” The way she looked at Draco said that  _she_ intended to be the one doing the talking.  
  
Draco bowed sarcastically to her and stepped back. His dream of claiming Potter in public had collapsed in folly. He would let the Ministry ceremony, far emptier than the ceremony of placing his gift around his mate’s neck, proceed.   
  
But he wouldn’t retreat into the background. He remained standing next to Potter as the Minister, shaking his head, gave a prepared little speech, and Potter gave a prepared little speech, and the Minister pinned the medal on him, and they both flashed smiles for the clicking cameras.  
  
Draco could hear the buzz of rapid conversation from near the back of the room, but no one had so far stepped forwards and accosted him. Why would they? Most people here were either pure-bloods or half-bloods who knew wizarding traditions. They knew what a great honor being chosen by a Veela was. They knew the natural way to react.  
  
 _Hell, even_ Weasley  _knew._  
  
It was a sad day when a Malfoy thought he would rather have a Weasley for a mate than the one destiny had placed him with.  
  
But then Draco looked at Potter’s face again, shining with determined pleasure as he stepped backwards and let his friends come forwards to receive their own Orders of Merlin, and his mouth filled with a slippery, sour taste. His hands grew heavy with the desire to press and bend and hold.  
  
No, Potter was his mate, that much was clear. And Draco wouldn’t give him up, and he didn’t  _want_ anyone else.  
  
The only mystery was why Potter didn’t feel the same way.  
  
*  
  
Harry stalked into the anteroom where he and Amalantha had stood before the ceremony, feeling as though his blood was humming through his veins. The Order of Merlin banging back and forth on his chest comforted him. He turned around and folded his arms and stared at Malfoy, who was having trouble fitting through the door until he remembered to lower his ridiculous wings.  
  
Harry curled his lip a little. Putting aside  _everything_ else, Ginny and wanting to be with someone he loved and being busy right now and Malfoy being a bloke and being someone he used to hate, Harry wasn’t sure that he wanted a “mate” who didn’t have the common sense to think about the problems his wings could cause indoors.  
  
Malfoy stood near the door, barely shifting aside so Ron and Hermione could come in, or Kingsley follow them. His eyes had decided to be wide and unblinking again, and they were focused on Harry’s face. Harry sighed and turned to Ron.  
  
“You said that I should have been submissive and Malfoy  _should_ be dominant,” he said. “As if that’s the way it always happens. Explain.”  
  
Ron sighed noisily and folded his arms. “Because that’s the way it’s always  _been_ , mate. It’s like girls—women,” he hastily corrected himself, at a significant elbow-twitch from Hermione, “being able to have children. That’s the way it is. Something natural. You have to have a man and a woman in a relationship to get the woman pregnant and have a child, right? It’s the same thing with Veela. You have to have a submissive and a dominant.”  
  
“This had better not end with talk of me being pregnant,” Harry muttered.  
  
“Er,” said Ron, and turned red enough that Harry seriously considered drawing his wand and blasting Malfoy to smithereens. But Ron saved Malfoy’s life by blurting out, “No, there’s no pregnancy, but you do have to have a submissive and a dominant to create the egg.”  
  
“You make it sound so ungraceful,” said Malfoy.  
  
“You owe him a life-debt,” Harry told him. “Treat him nicer.”  
  
“What?”  
  
Harry shook his head. He could hardly expect Malfoy to keep up with his own private thoughts. “Look, Malfoy, I have no idea what went wrong here, but obviously something did, right? Because you should have a submissive mate, and that’s not me.” He had to admit, his skin crawled with the sympathy he felt for the other poor bastard, whoever it was, but presumably that person would welcome being Malfoy’s toy. “You can’t—reproduce without the right person, and that matters.”  
  
“It’s more than that,” said Malfoy, those wings of his beginning to beat again, the feathers trembling in a way that blurred them. “I need you to give me someone to defend, someone to love, someone to—”  
  
“But it went wrong this time,” Harry interrupted brutally. “I don’t know why, but it did.”  
  
“I think I know why.”  
  
Harry turned to Hermione with a sense of relief, ignoring how Malfoy sneered at her. The disgraceful way that Malfoy treated his best friends was number two on the long list of reasons that he and Harry were not going to be together, but at least Harry would only have to put up with it for a few more minutes. “I knew you’d have the answer. Why?”  
  
Hermione blushed, but looked at Ron. “I didn’t actually hear about this before, and Fleur doesn’t require the same thing of Bill. But it happens with full-blooded Veela, not quarter-Veela, right, Ron?” Ron nodded, and Hermione continued, her voice gaining confidence. “So people who were raised in wizarding society accept it the way it is. Natural. The same way that so many people in Muggle societies in the past believed that all women were naturally submissive and—oh, it depended on the period of history, but they could believe that they were naturally good mothers, or naturally evil, or naturally sexual.” Hermione was blushing a bit more, but she forged right ahead. “Women who weren’t like that were unnatural. At least, other people thought they were, and even some women who wanted different things were taught that that was wrong, and so they thought  _they_ were wrong.”  
  
“No offense, Hermione, but I’m not a woman,” Harry had to point out. This sounded far too close to Malfoy’s plan to make him into something he wasn’t, and he didn’t want Malfoy to get more ideas.  
  
Hermione shook her head impatiently at him. “But don’t you see? Someone who had been raised in a different culture would have thought that was odd, the way those people in the past thought about women. And it’s the same way here. Maybe someone who was raised in the wizarding world would think it was completely natural to be a Veela’s submissive mate, and would feel they had to be submissive the instant they realized the Veela was dominant. But you were raised in the  _Muggle_ world.”  
  
Harry cocked his head. Yes, that would explain some things. It didn’t happen all the time, and when it did he was mostly able to put it down to his own ignorance, but now that he thought about it, he could remember other times when he’d done something that made people like Ron or Neville gape at him. It was easy to laugh off when it didn’t concern his bloody freedom, like this did.  
  
He turned around and gave Malfoy a stern look. “Well, there you have it, then. You can’t have what you want from me because I wasn’t raised that way. Go away and bother someone else.”  
  
Malfoy’s face was utterly stricken. He reached out one hand, as though he was going to take Harry’s, and then dropped it and hunched away from him. “But that’s not the way it is,” he whispered. “This is something inborn. Natural. Otherwise, I wouldn’t feel dominant.”  
  
Harry decided to ignore that. It didn’t make sense, and it only meant that Malfoy couldn’t have been listening closely to Hermione, or he would know already that he “felt” dominant because he thought he should. “Well, you’d be happier with someone who could feel submissive the way you want, right? Not with me.”  
  
*  
  
Draco wondered how in the world this had all gone so wrong, and what kind of twisted thinking growing up in the Muggle world taught you, if this was the way that they reacted to all obstacles.  
  
He shook his head and bore in. “My instincts are fine. They wouldn’t have told me that you were my mate if you  _weren’t._ Instincts are natural. Inborn. They can’t be fooled by things like what sort of family raised you. You would still be my mate if my family hadn’t raised me or if we had never been rivals or if you had never been the Boy-Who-Lived.”  
  
Potter snorted, his eyes hard and unyielding. That was so wrong for the eyes of a submissive that Draco had to look away. “How can you know that? I would have been so different without Voldemort trying to kill me, if that never happened, if my parents never died—” This time, he was the one who cut himself off, glancing away and shrugging. “How did you learn that I was your mate? Who told you that? Can’t you just go back and ask them to find you a different mate, one who would actually be glad to be with you?”  
  
“You’re not  _listening_ ,” Draco snapped. And that was another unnatural thing, that a submissive wouldn’t hang on any word his dominant said. It was one reason that Draco had been so glad when he found out he was dominant, so that he could have an audience. “It wasn’t anyone outside my head. It was my instincts. The day you turned eighteen, this formless anxiety that had been drifting around inside my mind sharpened and clarified. I woke up whispering your name. That was how I knew.”  
  
Potter didn’t look impressed. If anything, his lip curled. “And you knew my birthday, right?”  
  
Draco stared at him. “What does that have to do with anything?”  
  
“What would have happened if you didn’t?” Potter folded his arms. “Would you still have woken up on your mate’s birthday? On my birthday, assuming that we entertain the mad position that I  _am_ your mate for a second? Would you have known the day? I’m wondering if that stupid celebration that made front page of the  _Prophet_ that day influenced you at all, or knowing that was the date I was born. If you wanted me as a mate, maybe your instincts just picked that day, and it only  _felt_ natural to you.”  
  
“ _That’s not the way it works._ ” Draco gestured violently between them, although only a few hours ago, he would have been unable to imagine doing that to his mate. But this was going all wrong, tumbling to the floor in wrecked pieces. “I don’t want you as a mate! Look how horribly it’s going already! My instincts just chose you because you were the right one!”  
  
“It is horrible,” said Potter. “So find someone else.”  
  
“I can’t.” Draco gripped his hair and turned away. His wings were vibrating around him now, a betrayal of his emotions that he wanted to stop. But maybe his mate would feel sorrier for him if he saw that. “You’re it, Potter. If you refuse…I don’t know exactly what will happen. Because  _no one refuses._ ”  
  
“This time, it’s happening. I think Hermione’s right.” Draco heard Potter shift his weight, probably leaning back towards his friends and away from Draco just to show that he could. “I wish you luck in finding a mate who was raised in the wizarding world, but that’s not me.”  
  
Draco shook his head. His wings beat faster and faster, fast enough now that his feathers were starting to hurt. He raised one hand, and found it on his face, digging into the skin of his cheeks, digging for his eyes.  
  
“Mr. Malfoy!” That was Shacklebolt. He muttered a spell, and a second later, Draco’s hands were chained in front of him, bound by heavy cuffs that meant he couldn’t reach his face.  
  
Draco bowed his head and moaned. His wings kept fanning, and the Minister muttered another spell. That bound his wings closely to his side, but that didn’t make Draco feel any better. His stomach was churning with nausea now.  
  
“There  _is_ a legend,” he heard Weasley shout, sounding alarmed. Over  _him_. Draco knew he should feel amused, but that was only a faint urge among the much stronger ones sweeping him. “That if a dominant Veela can’t get to his mate or can’t find them or can’t protect them, they try to destroy themselves. Or combust from the inside. Or something.”  
  
 _There is that legend,_ Draco thought distantly, numbly. He hadn’t connected it to the probable consequences of a mate refusing his dominant, which had never happened.  
  
“Harry, mate,  _do something!_ ”  
  
Draco felt blackness creeping in around the corners of his vision. His gut’s churning got worse. Draco hadn’t eaten anything this morning, as was traditional with this rite of courtship; the first meal he would eat with his mate, and feed to him, would also be Draco’s first meal of the day. Otherwise, he would surely have vomited by now.  
  
“What am I supposed to do?” he heard Potter yell. “I can’t just feel like his slave! He would probably know I was lying.”  
  
 _I would,_ Draco agreed silently.  _But it might feel good anyway._  
  
Then he slumped to the floor, and then there was a noise like ringing glass, and pain in his wings, and then he passed out.


	3. Conflicts and Compromises

Harry cursed as he watched Malfoy fall unconscious. There went his last hopes that Malfoy had been mistaken or playing a prank on him or even just taking advantage of the Veela “instincts” that he said the change gave him to get one over on Harry. Harry didn’t think Malfoy would collapse like this and embarrass himself if there was any choice.  
  
“Harry, do something!” That was Ron.  
  
“What can I do?” Harry snapped, whirling on him. The Order of Merlin banged uncomfortably on his chest. “You said that he needs to know I’m going to submit to him! I can act, maybe, but I won’t fool him, and he’ll die without the proper emotions from me, won’t he?”  
  
“I don’t know,” said Ron, and hunched, tense, miserable, his eyes darting from Harry to Malfoy. “This hasn’t happened before. Can’t you just—go over and touch him, or something?”  
  
Harry didn’t think it would work, but he didn’t want Malfoy to die, either. He went over and crouched down beside Malfoy, taking his shoulder. It was utterly unresponsive, until the edge of Harry’s hand brushed Malfoy’s wing.  
  
Malfoy promptly breathed, which meant he hadn’t been until then, which made Harry shudder with a terror he could barely name. He didn’t like Malfoy, but God, what it would do to the peace process Harry was trying to start if Malfoy died. The peace Harry was trying to build back up between pure-bloods and Muggleborns would probably crumble utterly. There would be distrust and paranoia and accusations and gossip that could maybe lead someday to another war.  
  
Harry never wanted to fight another war as long as he lived. And that included a war with people like Malfoy who were annoying but not really  _evil_. He scowled down at Malfoy. Why couldn’t he have found another mate and been happy, somewhere away from Harry?  
  
Malfoy’s wing trembled and shuddered, curling around the edge of Harry’s palm in a way that made it seem oddly like a hand. Then he rolled over and stared up at Harry. His face was lost and soft. “Hello?” he whispered, the sound ending in a sharp whistle that made Harry flinch back.  
  
“I don’t want you to die,” Harry told him. “But I can’t be your slave.”  
  
Malfoy closed his eyes. He was breathing, though, and continued doing that, one wingtip wrapped around Harry’s hand in that weird way. He rolled his head to the side and licked lips that were blue. Harry frowned. He didn’t understand the kind of things Malfoy was feeling. Beating wings, blue lips like he was cold, and he’d tried to hurt himself, too. What kind of weird Veela thing  _was_ this? Why did the Veela think they were better off having mates when it would cause them to hurt themselves like this?  
  
“Water?” Malfoy whispered faintly.   
  
Harry held up a hand when Kingsley started to move forwards. He understood the impulse, but he was there now, and maybe this would help bring Malfoy back to life. He flicked his wand out and conjured a glass; conjuring charms were ones he’d studied a lot when he was stuck in a room waiting endlessly for awards or trials after the war. Then he cast  _Aguamenti_ and filled the glass with water.  
  
By the time he held the glass to Malfoy’s lips, Malfoy was staring at him as if he was thirsty for Harry instead of the water. Harry held back the sharp sigh he wanted to give, and instead made sure that Malfoy swallowed. While he was swallowing water, he couldn’t talk.  
  
But Malfoy turned his head to the side soon enough, and Harry sighed aloud this time and lowered the glass to the floor, watching carefully. Malfoy hadn’t let go of Harry’s hand with his prehensile wingtip yet. But he hadn’t said anything, either. Harry didn’t know what was supposed to happen next.  
  
What  _actually_ happened next, whether or not it was supposed to, was Malfoy tightening his grip on Harry’s fingers until Harry thought he would cut the circulation off, and moaning softly, “I can’t believe that my mate had to help me instead of the other way around.”  
  
“Let’s pretend,” said Harry, in a sharp, bright voice, ignoring the way that Kingsley and Hermione and Ron were all trying to say something at once, “that we’re two normal human beings, not a screechy Veela and the helpless slave you think I should be. You’d think we could both defend each other sometimes, right?”  
  
Malfoy glared at him. “I am not  _screechy_.”  
  
“But you’d think that,” Harry said. He and Hermione were the only ones with sense here, he thought. Well, and maybe Kingsley, too, but Harry didn’t know what side he was on yet. “It wouldn’t matter who gave the unconscious person on the floor water. He could hardly be expected to do it for himself.”  
  
“A normal dominant Veela wouldn’t ever end up on the floor when his mate needed his help and protection.” Malfoy lifted one hand to shield his eyes from Harry, as if this was a bad dream he needed to wake up from. Harry sympathized  _exactly,_ and that helped a little when he spoke next. He could make his voice softer.  
  
“I’m not talking about ending up on the floor when his mate needed help.” Maybe if he said it enough, the word “mate” would stop tasting strange in his mouth. “I’m talking about just ending up on the floor. It must happen sometimes when the dominant, or whatever, a person, ends up there and the other person helps him. And that’s not a debt or whatever. It’s just what a decent person would do. Let’s pretend that we’re both decent people—”  
  
“It’s obvious that you don’t think  _I am_.”  
  
“No, someone who expects me to crawl on the floor and lick his shoes isn’t,” said Harry, dropping the pretense. This wasn’t fucking working. “ _Listen_. I can’t pretend to be your good little slave, and I can’t sit here holding your wing for the rest of your bloody life. Will you just—”  
  
“Mate.”  
  
Malfoy showed his teeth in a silent snarl worse than a lot of words he could have said. If he was strong enough, Harry thought he would have launched himself at Ron. Harry angled his body in between Malfoy and Ron as it was, and said, as simply as he could, “What is it, Ron?”  
  
“I think you ought to talk in private. There are too many other people here, too many noises. That makes a dominant jumpy. Maybe he would calm down if you were in a small dark room without other people.”  
  
 _It would probably remind him of a broom cupboard off the Astronomy Tower and he’d jump on me immediately,_ Harry thought, but he retained enough sense, just, not to say it. He nodded. “All right. But we have to come to some sort of compromise. I can’t do everything he wants.” He started to stand up.  
  
Malfoy uttered an embarrassing whining noise and reached out after Harry with his arms and his wings. Harry’s stomach wriggled with an equally embarrassing mixture of nausea and pity. Malfoy would kick himself if he could see the way he was acting right now. The real Malfoy would, anyway.  
  
“Fine,” said Harry, and knelt down, and took a wing again. “Then can the rest of you lot clear out? And I’ll dim the lights and try to talk rationally to him.” He was pessimistic about it doing any kind of good. Whatever dominant Veela acted like normally, Malfoy acted like he didn’t want any compromises.  
  
Hermione said, “Should we? It feels like leaving a woman alone with someone who’s trying to rape her.”  
  
Ron hushed Hermione, and herded her out of the room. Kingsley was the last to leave, his eyes tracking back and forth thoughtfully from Malfoy to Harry.  
  
“You realize that this would make the kind of work you want to do extremely difficult, Harry,” he finally murmured.  
  
“God, I bloody  _know_ ,” said Harry. He was considering all the many ways that Malfoy could warp and mess up his life, and that was the first one that had come to mind.  
  
Kingsley smiled slightly, nodded, and walked out. Harry drew his wand with his free hand and cast the charms that put up some silencing spells and some dimming spells on the room—but not so many that someone couldn’t come running and save him if Malfoy started trying to claw his face off.  
  
“All right,” he said, turning back to Malfoy. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to kill you. I don’t want to cause you to commit suicide. But you ought to know that I’m not going to crawl on the floor, or stop caring for myself, or stop defending myself or fighting. And I’m  _busy_. I want to make sure that another war doesn’t happen, at least not in my lifetime. And no war with the Muggles. Can you fit in around all that, and we’ll try to see if we can forge a reasonable bond that can help you? That’s what I’m willing to compromise on. And not compromise on,” he added, deciding that he needed to, because Malfoy was staring at him with his mouth open.   
  
*  
  
Draco had never known there was a chance that his mate  _could_ be like this. Nature should have forbidden it. If a non-submissive submissive mate had to exist, nature should have assigned him to a Veela who would like that sort of thing.  
  
But Draco needed to know where he stood. He needed someone who would admit that Draco could do things right, after the last few years of doing everything wrong. Draco knew that about himself. When his wings had grown, if not earlier, he had come to a crystalline understanding of himself, his own mind, his thoughts, what he required, what he wanted, and what he could live without.  
  
This wasn’t in any of those plans.  
  
 _Well, I suppose I at least know where I stand with Potter,_ Draco thought, as he saw the way that those green eyes glared impartially at him. He was an obstacle to what Potter wanted. Potter was going to accommodate him as little as possible, as easily as possible, and just go on.  
  
Draco hunched. What he  _needed_ was to be the center of his mate’s life.  
  
But if he also needed Harry Potter, maybe—he admitted the idea reluctantly—he also needed the work that would accompany Potter becoming a suitable mate. It was a longer courtship than he had thought he would need to undertake, but the lore contained some records of such courtships. That didn’t make it impossible.  
  
“All right,” he said. “I don’t—submissive mates usually don’t work outside the home, but I’m willing to let you do it.”  
  
He thought that was generous of him. He didn’t appreciate the wrinkled nose and curled lip Potter was wearing.  
  
“So they spend time doing nothing but—what?” Potter shook his head. “Looking after the house and the children?”  
  
“Of course not,” said Draco, a little shocked. “I have house-elves for that. You wouldn’t need to do any of those chores.” Maybe some mates of poorer Veela had to worry about things like that, but Potter never would.  
  
“I have particular reasons for disliking housework,” Potter mumbled, but it sounded as if he was talking to himself. He looked searchingly at Draco. “So what does the traditional submissive mate do other than sit on their arse all day long?”  
  
“They serve as the heart of the house,” said Draco, still insulted. He thought he might understand a  _little_ after hearing Granger talk about some women had been treated in some Muggle societies, but a mate was different. “They serve as the inspiration for their dominant mate. The dominants protect them and pamper them. They  _cooperate_ to form the eggs.” He thought Potter would like to hear that.  
  
But Potter looked, if possible, more revolted than before. “I spent seventeen years being a symbol for people,” he said, almost spitting the words. “Do you think I want to do it again?”  
  
“It looks to me like you’re doing it by involving yourself with the Ministry and accepting that Order of Merlin,” Draco retorted, gesturing to the ornament on Potter’s chest.  
  
“That can be the work that people think I’m doing, if they want. The real work is harder and longer and more lasting.” Potter leaned a little away from Draco. “You still haven’t said what you can compromise on. All you can do is talk about a role that I can’t play.”  
  
“But  _everyone_ wants someone to give them some attention and pampering,” said Draco, stupefied. He had wanted that, Pansy had, his mother had, even Crabbe and Goyle had. Before Draco had known himself to be a dominant, he had thought it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to be a submissive and receive care all his life.  
  
“That doesn’t mean they want it non-stop.” Potter rocked back on his heels with his arms folded. Draco swallowed. That motion of rejection still made his stomach hurt, although it wasn’t as bad as the insults. “Work with me here, Malfoy. You have to stop making assumptions about what ‘normal mates are like’ and ‘what everyone wants.’ Assume I know nothing. Assume I’m not normal.” Potter gave him a strange, dark smile. “Normal people don’t walk up to their enemies intending to sacrifice their lives to save the world.”  
  
Draco felt his feathers shift, curling like his claws into sharper points. Potter eyed them, but didn’t move away.  
  
“You’ll never have to do anything like that again,” Draco whispered. “ _I’ll_ protect you.”  
  
“Lucky for you that I changed my mind about being an Auror,” Potter said, and went on before Draco could explode at the mere thought of his mate placing himself in a dangerous situation. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I’ll still be in danger. There are an awful lot of people who want to kill me. What are you planning to do about that? You can’t just accompany me and stand in front of me all the time.”  
  
“You could stay  _home_ ,” Draco said, wondering how many times he would need to repeat it. “That’s the way a normal mating bond works.”  
  
“What did I tell you about assumptions?”  
  
Draco’s head was pounding, and this time, not because of a rejection by Potter. “That’s what mates do. It’s as much to soothe the dominant’s temper as it is to protect the submissive. I can’t  _stand_ it when you’re in danger.”  
  
“The one that’s the most danger to me at the moment is you,” said Potter, not moving. “A danger to my hopes of living the life I want. You have to work with me here, and sitting there and prating about the way you want to do things and nothing else won’t accomplish that. What can you compromise on? What can you not compromise on?”  
  
“I can’t compromise on having you out of the house on a regular basis. You have to stay there.”  
  
Potter spun his wand lazily through his fingers. “Try again.”  
  
“You asked me a question, and I told you.” Draco dragged himself up to a sitting position. “Just because you said that you—”  
  
“I said that I intend to go on living my life.” The laziness, this time from the look in Potter’s eyes, was really quite annoying, as though what Draco wanted didn’t ultimately matter more than what Potter did. “Now. I’m willing to avoid putting myself in obvious danger, to stay behind stronger wards, even to live at your house.” Potter grimaced, but Draco had the feeling that it was only skin-deep, as if Potter’s choice of living space didn’t matter that much to him. “But I’m not willing to give up everything I’m doing and behave like the normal mate that you know I’m not. Is that compromise acceptable or not?”  
  
“ _No_.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“There’s still the chance that you could be in danger—”  
  
“And there’s the chance that I could be in danger even if I did everything you wanted.” Potter leaned forwards and poked Draco in the chest with his wand. “Did you know that a dragon tried to tear down the Ministry to get at me last month?”  
  
Draco stared at him. “What? Why?”  
  
“They couldn’t be absolutely certain, but by the time they managed to subdue the dragon, they found that it had magic hanging about its head and ears similar to the magic in the Dark Mark.” Potter shrugged and settled back on his heels. “When they removed that spell, the dragon lost interest in me. I think a dragon could do a lot of damage even to the wards on your Manor, right? Most of those old houses aren’t built to withstand a determined magical creature.”  
  
“Because wizards have proved our superiority and they don’t come near us to attack us,” Draco whispered, but his head was spinning so hard that he knew he would have trouble getting up from the floor. Potter had enemies that savage and that dangerous?  
  
Draco didn’t know if he  _could_ protect his mate from danger like that, as much as the realization made it hard to breathe.  
  
“So.” Potter flipped an eyebrow up at Draco. “I’ve made compromises with the Ministry security they wanted around me at all times, and with their longing to dress me up in nice robes and parade me around all the time, and with the press. I can do it with you, too. But you have to actually  _make_ them, not just sit there bleating about something that can never be a reality. What about it?”  
  
Draco winced. “First,” he said, “don’t use words like bleating. It makes me feel like I’ve attempted to fly through a steel bar.”  
  
Potter studied him, then nodded. “All right. I didn’t know that. I won’t. What else?”  
  
Draco was silent, looking at him. Potter was far different than Draco had thought, and not only because he wasn’t submissive. He seemed so  _tough_. He had said that he could compromise, but Draco had the sudden feeling that that was because those compromises were only foam on the waves of the ocean to him; all the things about Potter that mattered, the important things, his values and his desires, were buried deep down, and hard to reach.  
  
Draco licked his lips.  
  
 _I could value a mate like that. Someone who has to be sought, who can’t be easily understood or conquered._  
  
He  _could_. It wasn’t what he had been raised knowing he would have, and Potter’s sweet submission would still make him happiest. But it was possible that he could change his mind enough for this conversation.  
  
Because giving up Potter wasn’t an option. Perhaps even more so now that he knew what Potter was really like.  
  
 _He’s mine. And what is mine, I keep._


	4. Settlements and Secrets

“Did you settle things?” Ron asked, coming up to Harry the moment he and Malfoy stepped out of the anteroom. They were back once more in the Atrium, but the Aurors had cleared the reporters and other people who might have lingered to gossip and stare out. Harry was grateful for that. He had the impression that it would be hard enough not to snap at Malfoy as it was, and the presence of people Malfoy had obviously wanted to impress—since he had decided to show up and “claim” Harry in public—would have made it infinitely hard.  
  
“We’ve agreed that I’ll live in Malfoy Manor and try not to insult him,” said Harry. He glanced sideways at Malfoy. He had finally let go of Harry’s hand with his wing, but in exchange for keeping the edge of the wing on Harry’s shoulder instead. Right now, he appeared to be staring off into the distance, ignoring Ron and Hermione, who had crowded up on Harry’s other side. “And that I won’t put myself in unnecessary danger.”  
  
Ron whistled softly. “That’s a lot for a Veela to agree to.”  
  
“Do submissive mates get  _any_ say in these situations?” Harry asked. Ron—and Malfoy—kept talking about what Veela wanted and didn’t want and were used to, and so far it seemed incredible to Harry that no submissive mate ever rebelled or ran away. Their lives must _suck_.  
  
“Usually, this is what they want.” Ron sounded a little apologetic, at least, even as he shook his head. “To be taken care of and be the heart of the house.”  
  
“That’s a phrase I’m going to look up,” said Hermione, making a little note on a scroll of parchment she was carrying with her. Harry craned his neck, not surprised to see that the word “Veela” already showed up several times. “Other people keep saying it, as though everyone is supposed to know what it means, but I don’t.”  
  
“That’s because you—”  
  
“Anything you can say about her also applies to me,” Harry muttered to him, cutting Malfoy off. “I’m Muggle-raised, and I might as well have been Muggleborn when I came into the wizarding world.”  
  
Malfoy gazed helplessly at him for a moment, and then looked away. Again Harry’s stomach churned with pity. Maybe some people loved being looked at like that, maybe some people loved doing the looking, but Harry didn’t think that was the case for Malfoy this time, any more than it was for him.  
  
“Fine,” said Malfoy, after a moment. “My mother—my mother deserves to know what happened and that things didn’t fall out as I expected. And if you come home with me, then you can start moving in.”  
  
“If it doesn’t take more than two hours,” said Harry, and cast a  _Tempus_ Charm just to make sure, even though he had the schedule drilled into his head every morning by obsessive reading. “I have a meeting in two hours.”  
  
“A  _meeting_?”  
  
 _Maybe that word means something different in Veela._ “Yes,” said Harry, evenly. “With some Muggleborn wizards who left our world and went back to Muggle society when they completed their education at Hogwarts. Partially because of Voldemort.” Malfoy tensed at the mention of the name, but didn’t flinch.  _Interesting_. “I convinced them to set up this meeting and talk with me. Maybe I can persuade them to move back and lead some of their lives here.”  
  
“Why would you want them to come back?”  
  
“That, right there,” Harry told him, “shows that you don’t understand what I’m trying to accomplish here.” He turned to Kingsley, who had waited off to the side. Harry felt a little bad at making the Minister wait like that, but he’d done the same thing with Fudge and Scrimgeour. He supposed that he should continue the tradition even with the one Minister that he liked. “What do you think the effect on the public of this mating bond is likely to be, sir?”  
  
Kingsley squinted at Malfoy and then shook his head, a little sadly. Harry had to grin. Kingsley was a good actor and could play up any kind of emotion that would benefit the situation, no matter what it was.  
  
“I think that the pure-blood crowd might like it, a bit,” Kingsley finally replied, turning back to him. “Not as much as they’d like it if you were the submissive in truth.”  
  
Harry firmly squashed the question in his eyes. “They’ve agreed to talk to me even though I have a Muggleborn mother. They’ll agree to talk to me even when I have a non-submissive Veela bond.”  
  
“Who have you been talking to?” Malfoy stared at him. “And why didn’t they convince you of the right way to act when you have a dominant mate?”  
  
“The Greengrasses are probably the only ones you know,” said Harry, but continued on to answer the question in his eyes when he wouldn’t stop staring. “The Hellions, the Raysons, the Kleins.”  
  
Malfoy opened his mouth and then closed it again, looking disturbed. “None of those are pure-blood families in bad standing,” he said slowly. “But they’re not the kind of people who have much power or influence.”  
  
“Right now, the ones who have a lot of power and influence don’t want to talk to me,” said Harry dryly. “I’m hoping that will change.”  
  
“A Veela mate might change it.” Malfoy leaned along the length of his wing against Harry’s shoulder. “Someone who acts properly in public and can convince others that he’s a real Veela mate, at least.”  
  
“Good, that should be no problem for you,” said Harry, and took up his wand while Malfoy was still silently spluttering. “Shall I go to my flat and get my things, and meet you at the Manor?”  
  
“Of course not.” Malfoy sounded a little ill. “I’m going with you.”  
  
Harry nodded, resigned. He really should have guessed that from Malfoy’s failure to let go of his shoulder even though they were in public now. “Come on, then,” he said, and extended his arm for the Side-Along Apparition.  
  
*  
  
It hurt Draco’s soul to see the place Potter had been living.  
  
It was one of the flats in Hogsmeade that you could rent if you knew where to look for them, at the top of a building with a shop on the ground floor and the shopkeeper’s quarters on the first floor. In this case, the shop was Zonko’s, and Draco had assumed when going in that he would find Potter’s rooms piled with gifts of toys and pranks from the shop.  
  
But instead, he found a mostly bare place, with a roof that slanted like an attic’s and a window that looked out on other buildings’ walls instead of over the prospect of Hogsmeade, as small as that prospect was in itself. Potter did have a few photographs on the mantel, and a single display of what looked like a prank—but not from Zonko’s—in the form of an open box with some smoking and vibrating little toys near the door. Draco stared at them. They were probably Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, he decided a moment later.  
  
He didn’t have long to examine them, though, because Potter was striding around the room packing his clothes and his pillows and a whole box of personal items that he apparently kept  _under his bed,_ and Draco had to move constantly to remain in contact with him. He finally snapped, “Can’t you just stand in one place and use the Packing Charm or the Summoning Charm, Potter?”  
  
Potter stopped with a breathless little sound and closed his eyes, shaking his head. “Of course. I’m sorry, Malfoy. I’m—a bit rattled.”  
  
Draco wanted to say that reasonable people would wait past the appointed meeting hour if they knew what was good for them, but Potter aimed his wand at several corners of the room and incanted several Summoning Charms. More books and pieces of parchment than Draco would have thought were there came flying out from under loose floorboards and the mattress and the stones on the fireplace.  
  
“Are you paranoid or something, Potter?” Draco finally asked, as he watched contents that wouldn’t have disgraced his own library at home shrink and settle into Potter’s single small and battered trunk. Potter heaved it up onto his other shoulder, the one Draco wasn’t touching. “And you could float that behind you, you know.”  
  
“That’s right, I could,” said Potter, and cast the spell that would make the trunk float, then started towards the door at a smart clip. It was just within the limitations of the pace Draco could keep up with if he wanted to keep his wing resting on Potter’s shoulder. He cursed softly and followed.  
  
“Are you paranoid?” he repeated, as they reached the bottom step of the staircase that led out onto the street.  
  
Potter gave a small shrug with his free shoulder. “Zonko let me rent the room when there were still Death Eaters after me. I owe it to him to take reasonable precautions.”  
  
 _And even unreasonable ones,_ Draco thought in irritation.  
  
“Hiding all your books and possession doesn’t seem reasonable to me,” he said, trotting to keep up with Potter as he started striding again. “And will you  _walk_ slower?”  
  
Potter slowed his pace at once. “Sorry,” he said, absently. “I’ll try to be better about that. I’m just not used to having someone walk touching me.”  
  
“You’ll try,” Draco said. “You realize that we’re not likely to get a second chance if you mess this one up?”  
  
Potter eyed him mildly over his shoulder. “I thought no one really knew what happened when a mate refused a Veela, because it had never happened before.”  
  
“I don’t think fainting and trying to claw my eyes out are positive symptoms.”  
  
Potter seemed to engage in much longer and deeper thinking about that than was at all justified, but when he gave a faint smile at Draco again, at least Draco knew that he hadn’t dismissed it out of hand.  
  
“Right,” he said. “Tell me when something’s hurting you, and I’ll do what I can to help you.”  
  
Draco thought of claiming that he hurt all the time with Potter’s rejection of him, and only a kiss or a more than casual touch could make it better, but Potter was already reaching out with one hand. “I think I remember what the gates of Malfoy Manor look like,” he said. “It’ll be all right if I Apparate us there?”  
  
“Please, Potter,” said Draco with a sneer, and moved in to wrap his arms and wings around Potter. He wanted to melt into the shiver of pure pleasure that enveloped him when he did that, but he doubted Potter would be sympathetic. “I’m the Veela here. I’ll do it.”  
  
*  
  
 _He’s also the one who lives in Malfoy Manor._  
  
It was that consideration that kept Harry from protesting, not any desire to submit to Malfoy’s dominant Veela-hood, whatever he thought. It was also that consideration that kept him silent as they proceeded along the corridors of the Manor, and into a room covered with mirrors and loaded with white furniture, where a woman Harry had last seen being tried for her knowledge of Death Eater activities rose expectantly to her feet.  
  
Narcissa Malfoy wore white, like everything else in the room. She also wore a pinched and disapproving expression when her eyes fell on Harry’s bare chest, and she said, speaking to Malfoy alone, “He didn’t accept the medallion?”  
  
“He’s Muggle-raised,” Malfoy said, with directness that Harry could only commend him for. At least Malfoy had lowered his embracing wings enough that Harry could see over the top of them. “He doesn’t know the traditions, and he doesn’t feel the instinctive submissiveness.”  
  
Narcissa’s mouth fell a little open. Harry raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t thought anything could do that. She had taken even her trial and the punishment of her husband with a life’s sentence in Azkaban calmly.  
  
Well, all right, he had seen her close her eyes once. That was right before Malfoy himself was acquitted of most of the charges against him.  
  
“What?” Narcissa came up to him, and Harry really thought she might lay a hand on his forehead to check for fever or something. Luckily, she didn’t, but once again looked at Malfoy instead of him. “How can that be? The submissive instincts are natural. Inborn.”  
  
“Less inborn than many people think they are, at least with me,” said Harry, as politely as he could. He glanced at Malfoy, but his gaze was averted as if he was ashamed. Harry had to continue without him. “Malfoy and I are doing our best to compromise. I don’t want to get into danger that affects him, or insult him without knowing what I’m doing. But I can’t stay in the house all the time, either.”  
  
Narcissa put her hands to her cheeks as if trying to hold down a blush or a shout. “This is unexpected,” she whispered.  
  
Harry gave a little shrug in response. He supposed he should be embarrassed himself, but this time, unlike the times when he hadn’t studied a book Hermione got him, or he had forgotten about Sirius’s mirror, it wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t known about Veela or mates, and no one had ever seen fit to enlighten him. It didn’t happen often, Harry supposed, or they would have taught him something about it in Care of Magical Creatures if nowhere else. As it was, they would have to muddle through.  
  
Narcissa dropped her hands and stood looking into the distance as if considering something. Then she turned back to Harry. “Did you come here merely to meet me, or for some other reason?”  
  
“Malfoy and I agreed that I ought to live here.”  
  
“Then we need a room prepared for you,” said Narcissa, and looked over his shoulder to catch Malfoy’s eye. Harry started to turn around, but Malfoy pushed a wing into his shoulder and made him stand still. Harry grimaced, rolled his eyes, and did so. If they wanted to have a private discussion about elves or spells or the kind of rooms that he needed, so be it. He was sure that he would find enough hidden places to store his belongings, and that was all that really concerned him at the moment.  
  
The silent eye-conversation ended, and Narcissa turned back towards him with a calmer expression. “Would you prefer the east wing or the west wing?”  
  
Harry half-shrugged. “Which set of rooms is closer to Malfoy’s?”  
  
The wing on his shoulder trembled, and Malfoy leaned in until Harry could feel his breath on the lobe of his ear. “I didn’t know that you wanted to be close to me. That’s a very good sign.”  
  
 _Well, you might need me in the middle of the night, and I don’t fancy running all over a house this big._ But Harry wasn’t about to say that. He knew that Malfoy would react better if he didn’t have insults or comments that implied they weren’t normal. “Good,” he said. “So. Which one?” He wasn’t going to cast another  _Tempus_ Charm until he had to, but he knew that the time for his meeting with Muggleborns was getting closer and closer, and he would have to leave fairly soon if he wanted to get there on time.  
  
“The east wing,” said Narcissa, and glided off in what Harry thought was probably the right direction. “Follow me, please.”  
  
Harry blinked a little at her back. He had thought she would get some house-elves to lead them, but as it was…  
  
 _Well. This is polite of her, at least._  
  
Harry settled into a long, swinging walk, aware of Malfoy coming along behind him with little flutters of his wings against the side of Harry’s neck. He was still breathing on Harry’s ear, too, and if Harry didn’t listen closely, the noises sounded distinctly like little sighs of passion.  
  
Harry closed his eyes in resignation. That was the part he hadn’t wanted to think about closely, the fact that he would have to sleep with Malfoy at some point.  
  
 _What the hell. It’s only sex._  
  
He hated to think about it like that, with one part of him, the part that had wanted to spend time hiding away after the war. The part of him that whimpered in the night and wanted Sirius back. The part of him that was afraid of all the threats that the Aurors had protected him from in the last few months.  
  
But everyone had a part like that, Harry thought. The trick was not to listen to it.  
  
And if he had to ignore it to get through sex with Malfoy, fine. He would do what he had to do.


	5. Walls and Windows

“Do you like it?”  
  
Draco caught his breath after he spoke the words, and promptly cursed himself. How was he ever going to get anywhere with his mate if he reacted like a nervous schoolgirl?  
  
But only he could know the sharp thrill that went through him as Potter stopped in the middle of the bedroom, spread his arms, and looked around as though he wanted to estimate the distance between his fingers and the walls. At least Draco took confidence from that. If it were a proper bond already, settled the way it  _should_ be, then Potter would be tuned to his emotions. As it was, Draco was spared humiliation.  
  
“It’ll do, thanks,” said Potter absently, and plunked his trunk down to the side of the bed. “You don’t mind if I use the cupboard space?” He moved his head towards the doors visible on the far side of the bed, eyes returning to Draco with what looked like equal absence of mind.  
  
“But do you  _like_ it?” Draco knew he probably should have stayed where he was and let Potter sort himself out, but he couldn’t help it. He came towards him, fingers floating to a halt just shy of Potter’s shoulders. “The colors, the layout, the way the bed’s arranged? All you have to say is a single word, and it can be changed to suit you. Whatever you’d like.”  
  
Potter gave him a glance that Draco couldn’t read, and then looked around again. Draco tried to see the rooms through a stranger’s eyes. The walls were a cool mixture of green and blue and white, one color sometimes predominating over the others in a corner or near a window, but quickly vanishing into the soft blending again. The bed was curved, the top extending away like Draco’s wings, the better to give more space for extra pillows and an attached writing desk. The rugs that scattered the stone floor were the same colors as the walls, and small representations of the solar system covered the ceiling in subdued, glittering gold and silver lights.  
  
“Well, yeah,” said Potter. “I said, it’ll do.”  
  
Draco flinched. Potter sighed and bent down to dig in the trunk. “Is this your room? Did I insult you by not liking it? But I do.”  
  
Draco shook his head, without words. No, he didn’t think Potter was insulting him, or even his family, or his family’s taste. It was more—  
  
It was more that the room was just a room to him, and he didn’t care. Not about the magnificent view out over a lake—false, enchanted, of course, but since when would even a Gryffindor care about that?—or the size of the bed or the conveniences that would appear if he summoned them. It was just a place to live, and that was that.  
  
Draco touched a wing to Potter’s shoulder. Potter looked up. “Yeah?”  
  
He was distant, from his eyes. Probably already in that bloody meeting, Draco thought, and for the first time in his life, he was jealous of a Muggleborn.  
  
“You can come up here to be alone whenever you like,” he said. It was probably useless to make Potter care about the room more than he already did, but he had to try. The Veela in him wanted its mate safe in the rooms where he  _should_ spend so much time. “You can call a house-elf if there’s anything that’s missing. The table attached to the bed will let you write on it, look.” He leaned over and pulled it out.  
  
“It is nice,” said Potter. And he looked at it, but Draco knew he missed everything important, from the softly glowing brown of the mahogany wood it was made of to the gold-handled drawers underneath it. “Now, do you want to come to the meeting with me?”  
  
Draco shut his eyes. It was still the same day that he had intended to claim Potter, he reminded himself. Remember that. He couldn’t expect all their compromises to happen at once.  
  
But knowing that if he had had a  _normal_ mate, he would have installed them already in his own rooms, and flown them around the Manor on a tender, triumphant parade of possession, and introduced them to the house-elves, and brought their first meal to share, it was hard to open his eyes again to this poorer world.  
  
“Yes,” he said. “I don’t think we should be separated for today.”  
  
He expected Potter to ask why. Potter only nodded and waved his wand in a swift flick that sent some of his clothes flying into the cupboards and spread others out on the bed.  
  
“Good, then come on,” said Potter, and moved towards the door, at a pace that would let Draco keep his wing on his shoulder. “We should just make it if we hurry.”  
  
His stomach as cold as an underground pool, Draco moved with him.  
  
*  
  
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Potter.”  
  
Harry smiled without difficulty. While Charis Green, the Muggleborn witch standing at the head of the table, was a little prickly, all her objections were reasonable ones. And at least she had come, and brought the others with her.  
  
“Thank  _you_ ,” he said, and shook her hand. He raised an eyebrow for a second when she stood there as if Stunned, and then realized that she was looking at Malfoy. “Oh. Yes. This is Draco Malfoy, my Veela mate.”  
  
The words made Malfoy press close to him from behind, taking a deep breath. Harry stood still and bore it. He couldn’t imagine a world where his neck smelled  _that_ fascinating, but obviously Malfoy lived in such a world. Harry didn’t want to hurt him. He would put up with it, and even with the wrinkles of suspicion that he could see bending Charis’s eyes.  
  
Before she could object, though, another member of the small delegation spoke up. “You would invite a  _pure-blood_ to speak to us?”  
  
Harry turned to the person who was prickly enough that he hated when he showed up at meetings, Patrick Osborne. “Yes. Sorry. It’s a matter of Veela life and death that he be with me, at least for today.”  
  
Osborne frowned and took his chair. He was a stocky man with a nose that Harry had never seen not wrinkled, and now he wrinkled it at Malfoy.  
  
“I suppose if it’s a matter of life and death,” he said.  
  
Harry nodded. It was best not to get angry at Osborne, who would only take whatever someone had said and craft it into a more devastating insult. And this wasn’t insulting, as far as conversations with him went. “Tell me what you were talking about last time,” he said, taking his chair at the head of the table. Malfoy stood behind him, which Harry thought was weird. This was a large room in the Ministry, not exactly airy but with enchanted windows that made it seem that way, and there were plenty of chairs around the table thanks to the disgust of some Muggleborns who had decided not to show up after the last meeting.   
  
But maybe ignoring Malfoy’s weird behavior was as wise as ignoring Osborne’s insults. Harry didn’t intend to spend a lot of time being worried about it, in any case. He laid his hands on the table in front of him and leaned forwards. “Well? Do you want to start?” He turned to Charis, a little surprised that Osborne or one of the others hadn’t already grabbed the opportunity.  
  
Charis sighed and stretched out her arm. “I left after the first war,” she said. “Except for short journeys back to Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade when I needed some Potions ingredients, I hadn’t been in the wizarding world since. Until I got contacted for these meetings.”  
  
Harry nodded encouragingly. Charis looked around at the others—seven in all—as though recovering strength from them, and then went on.  
  
“I only heard about this, you understand. I didn’t experience it.” She toyed with the edge of her sleeve. “But they said that people were accusing Muggleborns during the war of stealing wands from pure-bloods.”  
  
“That did happen,” said Harry, the image of that room where Umbridge had sat smugly sheltered behind her cat Patronus from Dementors blazing in his mind. He felt Malfoy shift his weight behind him, but mercifully, he said nothing.  
  
“How do we know it’s not going to happen again?” Osborne had found his tongue. “How do we know another war’s not going to start and they’re not going to say that we can’t have wands again? Or how do we know that we’re not going to come back and someone will think we’re criminals because we’ve been gone from the wizarding world for so long? I don’t want to be thrown into Azkaban because someone doesn’t recognize my wand or my last name.”  
  
As prickly as Osborne was, he made good points. Harry nodded. “For the war, that’s one reason that I’m trying as hard as I can to keep peace between the Muggleborns and the pure-bloods,” he said.  
  
“We can hardly help it if they break the peace and attack first.” Osborne folded his arms.  
  
“I know,” said Harry. “That’s one reason to work on it, though.”  
  
“That doesn’t alleviate the more practical, day-to-day concerns,” interrupted Annie Wellwent, a woman with a nasal voice and turned-up nose who always reminded Harry of his Aunt Petunia. He struggled against his instinctive revulsion when it came to her, though, because she did sometimes make good points. “Like being attacked for our wands, or sneered at and spat upon.”  
  
“That will need a longer-term strategy,” said Harry. For a moment, the words consumed him with weariness. How many times had he said this since the war, to different groups of people who wanted quicker solutions?  
  
He shook the feeling away. Even though he had said it to those other groups, he hadn’t said it to  _this_ one.  
  
“I don’t know what your long-term strategy consists of, though,” said Charis, and did some more frowning in his direction. “It involves patting of the air and platitudes when you talk to us, but none of those is concrete action.”  
  
Harry paused, and swallowed. He had one of those ideas that had burst in his head in a way that seemed like a blinding flash of insight, even though he suspected he’d been thinking about them subconsciously for a while. But this one really couldn’t have had long to brew, given the events of the morning.  
  
“One good-will gesture that might help is for my Veela mate, Draco Malfoy, to ask some of the pure-bloods to consider treating Muggleborns better,” said Harry. “After all, his life and mine are tied now, and we need to show that the same thing is true of pure-bloods and Muggleborns. There are so few wizards left, and even some have died since the war, of wounds they got in it or old age. We need to send a message of strength.” He turned and looked up at Malfoy. “What do you think? Can we appear together in public and send that message?”  
  
*  
  
Draco stared at Potter, shaken by a complicated rage.  
  
No submissive mate used the Veela bond for political gain like that. No one who was truly the heart of the house, and understood the division between public and private, would  _ask_. They would know the bond as a separate and sacred thing, and while they would go along with it if their dominant mate wanted to display for others, they would retire back into the house the second that it was done.  
  
“I don’t think that I want our bond to be used like that,” he said, the first thing that came to mind. Maybe he could have softened it a little for Potter’s Muggleborn allies, but he saw no reason to. They weren’t  _his_ allies.  
  
Potter’s eyes went blank for a moment, as if he was considering alternatives. But instead of trying to persuade Draco, the way Draco had thought he would, he said, “All right,” and turned back to the table of Muggleborns.  
  
The rage grew more complicated. Draco reached out and put a hand on Potter’s shoulder, beside the wing.  
  
“Yes?” Potter tilted his head back to look at Draco, without a trace of the trembling gratitude that should accompany every movement from a submissive.  
  
Draco struck as hard as he could, because things were wrong but he didn’t know  _why_ , and maybe striking would help massage them back into shape. “How can you ask me for something, and then yield like that?” he asked. “If it’s important to you, you should  _fight_ for it.” He squeezed down, hard enough that he thought he might have dented Potter’s shoulder blade.  
  
There was no pain in Potter’s face, though, and Draco wondered about that. Maybe he was just so used to being beaten up while he was fighting the Dark Lord that he didn’t acknowledge his own pain the way he should.  
  
 _He doesn’t do_ anything  _the way he should,_ Draco snarled to himself in silent frustration.  
  
“I asked you for something I thought made sense,” said Potter, his voice soft and precise. He seemed to have forgotten about the audience on the other side of the table. Draco hadn’t, but when his eyes darted to them, against his will, he saw them sitting frozen, as if this was outside their experience and they didn’t know what they should do. “You don’t want our bond to be used like that. I don’t know what else there is to discuss.”  
  
Draco bent down towards Potter and lowered his voice. At least some of the tales about dominant Veela and their submissive mates said that dominants could speak in a special tone that no one but the submissive could hear, and Draco was desperate enough to try that now, even though he didn’t think it would work. “You  _argue_ with me. You used to do that all the time! What happened?”  
  
“You made it clear that arguing with you wouldn’t do any good,” said Potter. “The way that arguing about living with you and being your mate wouldn’t. There are things that can do some good, like arguing with you about living outside the house, so I did that. But I thought this would be one of the things we could compromise on.” He sounded genuinely confused, as if he thought that he was doing his best to be a compliant little Veela mate and didn’t understand what Draco’s problem with it was.  
  
Draco massaged with his hand instead of squeezed. Maybe kindness instead of frustration would prove his point. “But you just gave up. That isn’t compromising.”  
  
Potter abruptly looked around, said, “Excuse me while we take this outside,” and stood up, seizing Draco’s wing. Draco felt himself arching his neck, his mouth dropping open. He hadn’t expected the first real touch to his wing from his submissive to come like this, but it paralyzed him with pleasure. It made him feel like he was floating in the middle of thick, sticky water and being supported by warm arms, all at once.  
  
By the time Potter let his wing go, they were out in the corridor, and Potter spun on him.  
  
“You don’t understand a single thing I’m trying to do,” Potter hissed, hand thrown up and coming dangerously near to hitting Draco in the face. Draco flinched back, irritated despite himself when Potter didn’t flinch back in turn, but maintained his gaze. “I wanted to live my life. You said no. I tried to compromise. You didn’t like some of the compromises. And now I’m going along with what you want, and not pressing you when you say that you don’t want to use this bond as a political tool, and you’re  _upset?_  I thought that yielding to you like a good little submissive was the right thing. What do you  _want_?”  
  
 _This._  
  
Draco hadn’t  _really_  known. He would have said he wanted the usual submissive behavior, even after it was obvious that Potter wouldn’t give him that. But it was all he knew about, and all he knew to ask for.  
  
Now, he had a different idea. What he wanted was this Potter breathing fire and entirely focused on him, not thinking about the million other political compromises he had to make and if Draco would fit into the neat schedule of his life. Now Potter was in motion. Draco didn’t want dead eyes and polite voices any more than he wanted Potter to point his wand at and threaten him. He just wanted—  
  
 _Arguments. That’s weird to want arguments when he’s the submissive._  
  
But it was the same depth Draco had glimpsed in Potter a few hours earlier, and almost forgotten about since because Potter had done so many other weird things. If he could do something like this, though, and show he considered Draco worth fighting with, maybe he would eventually think Draco worth fighting  _for_.  
  
“I changed my mind,” he said, as much to see Potter start and check and look at him with wary eyes as anything else. “I’ll appear in public and send that message of unity and let other people see and talk about our bond.”  _At least that way, everyone will know about my claim._  
  
Potter was still, cautious. Then he said, “What prompted you to change your mind?”  
  
“The way you looked when I refused,” said Draco.  
  
It was honest, but Potter didn’t understand, he could see that much, and Draco didn’t think he had the words to explain it right now. Perhaps in a while. Potter took a step back, then nodded, and said, “Then we’ll go back in there and explain it to them. And hope it’s a  _good_ explanation, one they accept.”  
  
Draco followed him. He didn’t care about the Muggleborns except insofar as they mattered to Potter’s happiness and maybe the time he spent with them that might cut into the time he spent with Draco. He had got a glimpse of something more precious, something he was going to hang onto.  
  
 _Who would want a mere pond, when they could have the ocean?_


	6. Appearances and Artifices

“You look sufficient.” Narcissa Malfoy stood at the bottom of the staircase Harry was coming down, appraising him with what Harry supposed was an expert eye.  
  
Harry gave the ghost of a smile. It had been a long few days since their meeting with the Muggleborns, while he and Malfoy tried to settle in around each other and decide what to do with other people’s expectations at the same time. Harry had at least managed to get Charis and the others to agree to a second meeting.  
  
And meanwhile, the news of him being Malfoy’s mate had got out in the papers, which exploded.  
  
Harry had read the articles, of course—it was his job to keep abreast of the political tenor of the wizarding world if he was going to try and  _affect_ those politics—but one thing he had noticed was that pure-bloods remained mostly silent. Almost everyone the newspaper quoted was Muggleborn or half-blood. Some members of the Ministry expressed shock, but they specifically said, “ _I_ feel…” Harry had had some education over the summer. He knew that meant they were speaking as private individuals, and not for their families.  
  
“I have never seen you look so before.”  
  
Harry returned to the moment, and the conversation with Narcissa. Another thing he was working on was keeping his mind on the present, since people got offended if he seemed to be thinking of something else. “You mean the clothes?” He looked down at the blue robes he wore, which seemed to shimmer around him. At least they weren’t heavy. Harry had worn dress robes that felt like anchors.  
  
“Yes,” said Narcissa. “You certainly had the money to afford robes like this before the war. Why did you never do so?”  
  
Harry snorted a little. “Because I didn’t care what I looked like, and what other people thought about me. Or, well, only when they were doing things like sending letters full of bubotuber pus to my friends because of articles in the paper.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
Harry decided that he was going to interpret that as a question about his indifference towards public opinion, and not as a question about why he cared about his friends. Everything would stay more peaceful that way. “Because I tended to get into these situations unwillingly. I didn’t know that people were going to believe I was the Heir of Slytherin, or I was going to be entered into the Triwizard Tournament. They could put up with me being me. But now I’m choosing to try and prevent another war. I have to care what I look like.”  
  
“I think Mother’s wrong. You look magnificent, not merely  _sufficient_.”  
  
A little uneasy, Harry looked over his shoulder. Malfoy was standing at the top of the staircase, a few paces behind him, eyes devouring Harry. He had torn himself away from Harry that first night so they could at least sleep in private, and it had never been so bad since.  
  
 _He_ wore robes that Harry thought were white, then stirred and settled into deeper shades of gold as he came down the steps. When he got closer, Harry could see the robes were almost plaques in the front, nonexistent in the back, leaving lots of space for Malfoy’s wings. A sash did cinch around his waist and hold the robes up, so he would stay decent when his wings were down and folded.  
  
He had them up now, though, fluttering back and forth. When Harry looked up and met Malfoy’s eyes again, he saw that they were fixed on him, and a soft, bubbling croon had started up far back in his throat.  
  
Harry recognized this from something Malfoy had said the other day as a courting gesture, and he stood still while Malfoy came down the steps to him and brushed his hair back from his face with one hand. Harry still thought that was odd, the compulsion to touch him, but it was part of the Veela bond. A lot of things were. As Harry had told Malfoy, those things that he didn’t  _have_ to resist, he would go along with.  
  
“You’re beautiful,” Malfoy said, and dipped his head and stared at Harry from beneath dramatically lowered eyelashes.  
  
Harry knew what he wanted to hear. That he was beautiful in turn, and Harry wanted to touch him, kiss him, sleep with him, submit to him.  
  
It wouldn’t do any good to lie, though, with Malfoy apparently more tuned to his emotions now; he had known Harry was angry the other day about one of the articles without Harry having to say a word. Harry just nodded and said, “You look nice, too,” and then looked at the front door. “It’s almost time for our little demonstration. Shall we go?”  
  
*  
  
Anxiety buzzed and bubbled in the back of Draco’s mind as he crossed the stretch of open ground between the gates of Hogwarts. The winged boars on the gates seemed to bristle with their own indications of danger. The people gathered in front of Dumbledore’s tomb, where it had been Potter’s idea to stage this, craned their necks almost immediately and started murmuring to each other with a sound like the tide.  
  
 _What if someone’s hiding in there who intends to claim Potter for himself?_  
  
Draco tried to walk more threateningly. It didn’t work very well. For one thing, his wings were already spread to shelter Potter from danger and stares. He had to work on keeping his balance. A stalk didn’t really go along with that.  
  
For another, Potter wouldn’t cooperate. He walked beside Draco, within the curve of his wing, but his eyes were traveling from face to face, and he smiled now and then, acknowledging someone else in the crowd. Draco didn’t know who they were. Potter hadn’t spoken about that to him. He seemed to know an enormous range of people, and not all of them were the sort of visitors Draco would welcome coming close to his mate.  
  
But he also knew that this wasn’t the sort of thing Potter would compromise on. And he would endure a lot to keep the relative harmony that had flourished between them the last few days, without Potter retreating from him the way he knew how to do so well.  
  
“Malfoy.”  
  
Potter spoke quietly, only to him. Draco dipped his head and let his croon bubble out again. That made Potter shrug his shoulders as though someone had put a hand on them. Draco didn’t mind it, though. At least it was a  _reaction_.  
  
“Yes, what is it?” Draco finally thought to ask. Potter had presumably spoken his name because there was something he wanted Draco to know.   
  
“You should know that I heard from Ginny yesterday.”  
  
Draco worked out the name. “The youngest Weasley?” he finally asked.  
  
“The girl I dated for a while,” Potter said, nodding. His eyes remained ahead of him, as though he hadn’t said a word just guaranteed to bring out a Veela’s possessive side.  
  
“The girl you are  _no longer_ dating,” said Draco. His hand had claws suddenly. He didn’t touch Potter, because of that, but he did hold his hand out to the side so Potter could make out the claws.  
  
“Of course not. It wouldn’t be fair to her.”  
  
 _What about fair to me? What about that?_ Draco held himself back from saying anything, though. Potter was at least saying that his relationship was in the past. Draco clicked his talon and pulled it back. “What did she say?”  
  
“She was bewildered,” said Potter. The crowd narrowed down to a tunnel of people ahead of them. Draco hissed softly and spread his wings, and some of them, because they were pure-bloods and knew better, sprang back so that they could open a pathway ahead of them. Draco wasn’t appeased. They should  _already_ have done that. “But she grew up the same way as Ron. She told me it was an honor and that she was proud of me.”  
  
“Why?” Draco didn’t think Weasley was proud of Potter’s behavior. Still shocked, if anything.  
  
“For not running away.” Potter’s mouth curved in a private smile that Draco couldn’t understand and wanted to, the same way he wanted to understand everything about his mate. “She knew—”  
  
But they had almost arrived at the front of the crowd, and Draco didn’t want to discuss private business in front of everyone. He waved his hand again, and Potter fell silent. There was a rippling of green robes in front of them, and a witch Draco knew moved towards them.  
  
Draco studied her face. This was Helena Greengrass, Daphne’s mother. Narcissa and Helena had once discussed a betrothal contract with either Daphne or her younger sister Astoria, to be enacted on Draco’s twenty-second birthday. When his mother found out that Draco would likely inherit his family’s Veela tendencies in full measure, of course, they’d had to give up the idea. There was no saying that Draco would choose either Daphne or Astoria as his mate.  
  
 _Maybe it would have been better if I had_.  
  
But Draco shivered under the lash of those thoughts, and that gave Helena the chance to speak the first words. “This is a surprise, Mr. Potter,” she said, and her eyes passed over Draco’s face as if she didn’t know him.  
  
“I know,” said Potter. “It was a surprise to me, too. Both having a Veela mate, and all the traditions that came along with it.” He gave Helena a smile that Draco paused and examined with a little wariness. He didn’t exactly understand it, but it wasn’t what he’d expected. He thought that was important, somehow.  
  
Before he had the time to fully analyze Potter’s smile, though, someone else moved forwards at the side of his attention and claimed most of his awareness. Daphne was standing there, hands behind her back and a small, mean smile in place.  
  
“Did  _you_ know you were going to be Potter’s mate?” she murmured.  
  
“Not for long,” Draco said. He didn’t see the need to explain more. She understood all the things that Potter didn’t, all the traditions.  
  
“You do understand that we’re trying to do something important here,” Daphne continued without pausing. “Something that matters a lot more than who grows wings and who cowers at whose feet.”  
  
Draco had to pause again. He had never heard a pure-blood express sentiments like that. Potter had said he was dealing with the Greengrasses because they were amongst the more open-minded, because relatively powerless, of the pure-bloods. That didn’t make them ignorant, though.  
  
“I’m not planning to take Potter away from that,” he said, after some moments of silence that he realized he had to turn into speech. Potter was talking with Helena about some aspects of the presentation that Draco knew he didn’t have to manage. No one would expect him to cast the  _Sonorus_ Charms. “He’s told me about his political work, and he’s the only one who can manage that. I agree. For the moment, we’ve—come to a compromise about his being the heart of the house.”  
  
“But I know Veela,” said Daphne, cocking her head back as though she was looking down a long line of Draco’s ancestors as well as at him. “You won’t be content with the compromise for long, whatever you might tell Harry. You’ll want to take him away. And he’ll fight you on that, and you’ll get angry, and you’ll beat him or whatever it is Veela do.”  
  
“No Veela would ever do that,” Draco said, and his free hand had grown claws now.  
  
“But no Veela has ever had a mate like this,” Daphne said, and turned away from Draco to consider Potter. Draco might have thought it was simply dismissiveness, boredom, a few weeks ago.  
  
Now he saw the focus for what it was, the light in Daphne’s eyes as they rested on Potter, and he attacked.  
  
He moved like a springing vulture, rising from the ground, his wings beating strongly behind him, his claws aimed ahead. Daphne was spinning to face him with a shocked face, one arm coming up to defend herself, her fingers gripped around the wand, but too slow, too slow. And Helena’s mouth was open, and the thoughts were traveling through Draco’s head faster than his wings could beat, and he knew that he might lose Potter a political ally, but he simply couldn’t  _help_ this.  
  
*  
  
Harry found himself reacting as though he’d expected it when Malfoy went crazy beside him, even though he hadn’t, not at all.  
  
But nothing except predicting it could have explained the way he swung around, grabbing Malfoy’s arms as he leaped into the air, and pulling Malfoy down into a half-hug. Malfoy fluttered his wings frantically, chopping and sawing with his claws at what Harry thought wasn’t him, but Daphne. The scream that broke forth a second a later made Harry flinch, but not as much as he would have if he didn’t have any war experience.  
  
“Hush, it’s okay,” Harry whispered, rocking Malfoy against him. It was a ridiculous position to be caught in, and he saw Helena’s eyebrows creeping up, but he had to ignore that for the moment. If his pure-blood allies didn’t know any more than he did about Veela traditions and instincts, this little demonstration wouldn’t impress them anyway. “She doesn’t really care about touching me. I don’t care about touching her. It won’t matter.”  
  
Over Malfoy’s head, through the wild mass of his hair sticking out like feathers, Harry caught a glimpse of Daphne’s narrowed eyes and tightly compressed lips, and wanted to groan.  _One thing couldn’t go my way? I had to have someone who’s decided on the basis of nothing that she wants me?_  
  
But for right now, the truth was less important than calming Malfoy down. Harry talked to him in broken words about the necessity of honesty and communication and importance, and how it was okay, and how they would compromise even on this, and it was okay, and gradually Malfoy’s claws vanished and he turned his head. His cheek brushed against Harry’s, and his voice faded into another series of bubbling croons that became words as Harry listened to them.  
  
“I want to protect you. I want to take you home and get you out of this.” His hands closed almost tenderly on Harry’s, and he looked into Harry’s eyes. “Will you come with me?”  
  
Harry moved a hand up so that he could cradle the back of Malfoy’s head. He wanted to say something else, many things, but all the words were the sorts he would speak to a friend, and Malfoy wasn’t that.  
  
Then he thought of another way he could look at it. He could approach Malfoy as someone needing help, which was certainly true. He had been able to deal with all sorts of haughty pure-bloods and touchy Muggleborns since the war because of who he was, but also because he could see them as people who needed help.  
  
He was good at helping people. It was probably his greatest talent.  
  
“I’ll come with you if that’s what you’re certain you want,” he said. “If you’re certain that you don’t want to stay here and establish your claim in front of everyone.”  
  
For a second, Malfoy’s eyes flared as though he was imagining that. Harry hoped he hadn’t said something wrong, and Malfoy didn’t think he’d agreed to sex.  
  
But instead, Malfoy snapped his head back and forth with what looked like irritation, and focused again on Harry. “I’m certain that I want to go home.”  
  
“All right,” said Harry quietly. This would have been a chance to establish other kinds of political bonds as well as demonstrate his “mating” with Malfoy, but things didn’t always work out the way you wanted them to. He turned to Helena. “Will you excuse us, please? And excuse us to anyone else who’d like to know where we’re going. I’m sure you’ll know the right words.”  
  
“I know the right words,” said Helena, her gaze slowly passing to Daphne, “but why should I use them?”  
  
 _Ugh_. Harry was startled by the surge of disgust that struck him.  _So they were just helping me because—what? They thought Daphne would date me or something, and they would get influence that way?_  
  
Harry sighed. “Because you want the cause that we’re both serving to go forward as fast as I do?” he tried. “Because what we planned for today didn’t work out, but we can at least keep the day from being completely wasted?”  
  
Both the Greengrass women stared at him as though he was speaking in Mermish. Harry sighed again. He wished he could learn to stop overestimating people. Maybe he would be best served if he thought of most of them, except Ron and Hermione, as greedy bastards. Everyone wanted something.  
  
Malfoy said, softly but with tremendous strength into his ear, “Let’s go home.” And he unfolded his wings as if he intended to fly Harry there.  
  
“I don’t have  _time_ for this,” Harry said, and turned his back on Helena. “If you won’t do it for me, I’ll find someone who will.”  
  
“I will,” said a quiet voice from behind Helena, and Harry saw her younger daughter, Astoria, peering around her. She had been in the year behind Ginny’s at Hogwarts, Harry thought. He had learned a lot of information about pure-blood families who were willing to help him, but sometimes it swam and blended in his head. “I’ll tell them that you had to go and tend to your dominant. They ought to understand that.”  
  
Harry nodded. At the moment, he wasn’t in a position to quibble about  _how_ they understood it. “Thanks, Astoria.”  
  
 _Even Helena ought to be satisfied with that,_ he thought, as he made his way, supporting and speaking softly to Malfoy, towards the gates again.  _It still redounds to the credit of her family._  
  
As for Daphne…Harry shook his head. She wouldn’t be satisfied with anything except what he wouldn’t give her.  
  
“You’re thinking about her,” Malfoy breathed into his ear, and nudged him and bit his neck possessively. “I don’t want you to think about her.”  
  
Harry blinked a little. “Okay,” he said, because he couldn’t think of anything else. “I won’t.” It was easier to turn his attention to the sharp teeth sinking into his neck anyway.  
  
Malfoy sighed and leaned on him. Harry snorted as he helped them around the gates and the milling crowd, breaking up in confusion now.  _He’s kind of cute when he’s not trying to eviscerate people._


	7. Hearts and Houses

“Unexpected jealousy like that weakens him.”  
  
Harry had accepted that explanation from Narcissa for why Malfoy had immediately fallen asleep when Harry got him up to his bedroom. And it made sense that he would want his “mate” near while he slept, with one wing curving around Harry. He hadn’t actually forced Harry into his bed, at least; Harry could sit on a stool next to the bed and eat a meal and scan a letter from an ally.  
  
Narcissa had come back and was standing in the center of the doorway like a pillar, watching him. Harry finally put his book down. It was bloody disconcerting, having her stand there like that.  
  
“What?” he asked her.  
  
Narcissa curled her lip a little, as if she found his words vulgar. Well, that was fine. She could think what she liked. “I do not understand how you can refuse Draco and yet seem so willing to accommodate him at the same time.”  
  
“He hasn’t demanded anything important,” Harry said. He knew Hermione was researching the heart of the house phrase, but she hadn’t got back to him yet, so he’d started reading this book about Veela that seemed promising. He wanted to get back to it. He didn’t want to sit here exchanging short and cryptic words with Narcissa. It was a Slytherin sport that held little appeal for him.  
  
“He has demanded that you change your life, that you acknowledge your status as his mate—”  
  
“None of that is  _important_ ,” Harry said. He didn’t know why she didn’t understand. She should have. She had gone through the war, and been reduced to the bare necessities of survival. She ought to have understood that very little mattered next to the incredible demands of life in a war zone.  
  
“It is very important,” said Narcissa. She came into the room and sat down on a big chair near the door, watching him. “It is a matter of life and death.”  
  
“Are we talking about the same thing? I know that he’s going to die if I don’t consent to do  _something_ with him—”  
  
Narcissa held up a single hand. Harry fell silent, shrugging a little. And they sat quiet for a minute more before Narcissa began again, her voice low but passionate.  
  
“One would think that, having been part of the war, you would fight harder than this when someone tries to restrict your freedom. To cut you off from what you value. To take over your life.”  
  
“That’s not what you believe,” Harry pointed out. “Or you would never have sent your son off to claim me in the midst of an award ceremony that was supposed to be for me and my friends.”  
  
Narcissa sat still again. Then she said, “I was trying to perform the art of seeing it from your point of view. I did not think I would need to. I thought your point of view would be that of most Veela mates.”  
  
“Well, it’s not.”  
  
“It is not the viewpoint of a common Muggleborn, either, is it?” Narcissa didn’t give him the chance to ask what a “common Muggleborn” would be. “You seem to think of this as an—obstacle.”  
  
“It is,” said Harry. “And I face bigger obstacles every day. Like the absolute refusal of some people to stop using the word ‘Mudblood’ even when it destroys a whole important meeting.” He scowled. He wouldn’t forgive Gisella Zabini for that easily.  
  
“It has changed your life.”  
  
“But not in an  _important_ way,” Harry said, and shook his head when he saw her staring at him again. “The important thing to me is not having another war. I’m ready to work endlessly and wear stupid clothes and smile at stupid people day in and day out if I can just prevent that.”  
  
“Everything else is so much tinder to that?”  
  
Harry thought about it. He wouldn’t have put it like that, and there was always the exception of his friends, but… “Yeah,” he said. “Basically. I’m indulging Malfoy in certain things because I don’t want him to die. I’m tired of people dying because of me.” It was the main reason he had decided against being an Auror. Causing one death had been enough. He would defend himself if he was attacked, but deliberately making someone die was something else.  
  
“Where you live is not important to you,” Narcissa said, for all the word like Hermione testing a hypothesis.  
  
“Why should it be? I won’t spend most of my time there anyway.”  
  
“Who you must marry is not important to you.”  
  
“This isn’t a marriage.”  
  
Narcissa paused long enough that Harry wondered what she would say next. Then she said, “Many people would say that a Veela bond occupies the same place in someone’s life as a marriage. Perhaps even more pressing, as it usually leads to the total commitment of one life to another, which marriage does not always do.”  
  
“I don’t think of it that way.”  
  
“Of course not,” Narcissa said. “For the reasons we have already discussed. But Draco does. And if you have been forbidding yourself to fight him because you did not realize it, what will you do when he takes your indifference for compliance and attempts to force the issue?”  
  
Harry held himself still. He wanted to lash out, the way he did when he heard people talking about starting another war over their lost war. He wanted to hurt someone, the way he did when people said he hadn’t done enough for the wizarding world and he had to give up more—the way he first had when Malfoy had marched up to him and announced that Harry was his mate.  
  
“I thought so.” Narcissa stood slowly, gaze lingering on Harry’s face, and then traveling to the bed. “I thought that you were not fighting more because you did not realize the full extent of what Draco would want. But this is it.”  
  
“It’s still not enough to make it a marriage,” said Harry, lifting his head higher. He’d had a chance to think his way through his emotions now. “A marriage is between two people who love each other, not between two people who were only brought together because of whatever—instincts the Veela might have.”  
  
“Defining your terms in unusual ways will not keep you safe forever,” Narcissa said, and bowed to him, and left, meaning Harry sat there in tense silence, his gaze on Malfoy’s motionless face, and his hatred spitting like the ghost of Nagini behind his eyes.   
  
 _No. This isn’t so. I won’t allow it to be so._  
  
 _Why not? Because I won’t allow it._  
  
*  
  
“It took me forever to find references to the heart of the house thing. Just like it took me forever for me to find references to dominant and submissive Veela mates. I think it’s for the same reason. All the authors assume you know this bollocks already.”  
  
Draco lingered outside the door of the library. He shouldn’t need to do such a thing in his own home, but Granger had shown up with that kind of deadly determined look in her eyes he recognized, taken one look at him, snorted a little, and towed Potter into the library and shut the door behind her. At least Draco could be that far apart from his mate now, and he knew his hands wouldn’t grow claws and tear the door down in an attempt to get to Potter.  
  
Unless Granger tried to lay a hand on him.  
  
Draco smoothed a finger over his feathers and went back to listening. He knew that Granger and Weasley had only ever had eyes for each other’s awful hair and equally awful freckles. He wouldn’t fear them as serious rivals unless Potter started showing an interest in them. That was the weakest part of their bond, that Potter put up with Draco but showed no  _desire_ for him.  
  
“What does it mean, then?” Potter still sounded calm like stagnant water. Draco was increasingly curious about what had happened to make him that way.  
  
“It’s weird,” Granger said, and opened a book hard enough to make the cover hit the table. “It’s strange.”  
  
“Would you  _just tell me what it is?_ ” At least Potter’s voice was cracking along the sides now, the way it had when he yelled at Draco the other day after the Muggleborn meeting.  
  
There was a slight pause, and then Granger said, “You know, Harry, we talked about your temper and what you could say in public and what you couldn’t.”  
  
Draco blinked several times. He had thought that Potter’s calm and cool way of going along with things came from a growing acceptance of the bond, and that was some proof that it was natural after all, no matter what Potter and Granger thought on the matter. Now, it sounded like his calm was the result of deliberate training.  
  
“I know we talked about it,” Potter said. There was a squeaky sound that was maybe his elbow running along the table. “But it’s hard to remember when it sounds like you’re taunting me.”  
  
“I don’t mean to,” Granger said, and her voice softened. “I’m just wondering how to explain it.”  
  
“I don’t care if you give me the highly technical explanation or not,” said Potter. He sounded tired. Draco strained his ears and turned his head. If he’d had any notion his mate was that exhausted, he would have bundled him into bed. “Just give me one.”  
  
“All right,” Granger said, and Draco heard the riffle of turning pages again. “From what I could find, being the ‘heart of the house’ does mean being a symbol for the dominant Veela, and the—the parent of these eggs that Veela can lay. “ Not even Draco, outside the library, could mistake the discouraging nature of Potter’s silence, which made Granger rush on. “But it also means that you can reach across the distance between the house and any other properties the Veela owns, and the house and any place where the Veela is. So you could see through Malfoy’s eyes from a distance, and you could—essentially  _be_  the house and feel what’s happening to its stones and see through the eyes of its portraits. And you could do that with any other houses Malfoy owns, too.”  
  
 _But of course he would be able to do that,_ Draco thought in wonder. Had Potter thought Draco was just going to confine him to Malfoy Manor for the rest of his life and never let him go anywhere?  
  
No wonder he hadn’t—rebelled exactly. Just looked Draco dead in the eye and refused to say he’d do that, and then gone on about his life as if that didn’t matter.  
  
 _He could have asked. We would have told him._  
  
Draco grimaced. It was hard to admit that his manner hadn’t exactly been encouraging with Potter when it came to asking.  
  
“I still don’t want it.”  
  
Draco jolted back to his own body and the scene happening in the library. Potter’s voice was so soft, so flat, so definite. He seemed to be speaking to someone who had offered him sweets that he didn’t want to eat in case he spoiled his dinner.  
  
“Malfoy probably thinks you do, or you wouldn’t have agreed to live in the Manor,” Granger said, and then cleared her throat. Maybe she was receiving a glare from Potter. Draco hoped so. It was time someone besides him did so. “I mean—you didn’t put up that much of a struggle about it.”  
  
“How much of a struggle,” said Potter, slow and deep, and Draco didn’t recognize this voice at  _all_ , “do I have to put up?”  
  
“I’m just saying,” said Granger, and Draco heard the sound of her shutting one of the books, as though she thought it was in danger. “I don’t like it, either. I think it’s hideously unfair.” And there was the voice Draco had secretly been waiting to hear from her, the spiteful, bright one that she used when speaking of house-elves. He rolled his eyes. Potter wasn’t a house-elf, and Draco would never make an attempt to treat him like one, and Granger ought to know that. “But Malfoy might think you’re going along with—”  
  
“I’m not.”  
  
Draco shivered. There was something touching his wing, plucking at the curve of it. He turned his head, curious, but found nothing there. Then it happened again, on his shoulder, and again on his arm, before he could even finish turning to look at his shoulder.  
  
When he realized what it was, what it  _must_ be, he swallowed, a little awed. A submissive Veela’s emotions were normally open to a dominant Veela at all times, but the connection weakened with distance. Draco had accepted that he wouldn’t be able to tell much about Potter’s emotions for a little while, other than basic things like whether he was lying. It would take time for the connection to open fully.  
  
But now he was getting physical manifestations of those emotions, which normally only happened when the dominant was at a distance and not able to hear the submissive or feel that they were in danger. This kind of plucking told him that his mate needed him. And it was as strong as though the distance was miles apart and the danger urgent.   
  
Draco thought he had waited long enough. He stepped forwards and opened the door of the library.  
  
Granger turned to look at him with a pale face. She shook her head and held up her hand when she saw him, as if to warn him to stay back. Draco didn’t listen to that. His mate needed him. He walked wide around the table, and towards Potter.  
  
Potter was on his feet, his chair pushed a little back. He looked at Draco for a second as though he didn’t recognize him. Draco wondered if the danger, whatever it was, had driven him into the back of his mind. He gave a tentative croon and opened his wings.  
  
Potter  _unfolded_.  
  
The magic that came out of him was powerful enough to give Draco a headache, and as strong and uncontrolled as pain. It shoved Draco backwards, away from Potter, and pinned him against the wall at the furthest distance possible without going out the door, against one of the bookshelves. Draco tried to breathe and found that he couldn’t, that the pressure lay like a huge brick on his chest.  
  
He choked and reached out a pleading hand towards Potter. At least he still had the strength to do that.  
  
Potter walked slowly towards him. He stopped perhaps a few feet away from Draco and looked at him. Draco felt the pressure on his chest ease at the same moment. He gasped out and opened his mouth, not sure what he would say, only knowing it was essential that he say something, that he try to answer his mate’s questions, that he let Potter know he would be beloved and revered.  
  
“I thought you knew,” Potter said, voice as unpolished as lead. “I thought I made it perfectly clear that I  _hate the thought of this._ ”  
  
Draco stared at him, and said the first thing that came into his head, perhaps suggested by Granger’s words. “But you agreed to live with me.”  
  
Potter laughed without sound, his lips parted and his teeth showing. It reminded Draco of the way the Dark Lord had sometimes laughed. He shuddered, but managed to look at his mate and not hide his face. That would only begin greater problems between them.  
  
“I did what I had to do,” said Potter, “to make the fewest compromises possible, to keep you out of interfering with my politics. I told your mother that, too. What do I care what my rooms look like? What do I care who I  _have_ to spend some of my time around? It would look bad for me if you died. It would waste people’s time by making them write about that instead of about other things that would matter more. They’re already writing those endless chattering newspaper articles about our ‘bond.’ What idiots. What fools. As if it  _mattered_.”  
  
Draco struggled, trying to understand. He was still pressing against the magic that held him back, too, he realized, straining to reach Potter, who looked at him with alien eyes. “But—but you were—you put up with those articles—”  
  
“I was angry about them,” Potter said clearly. “But I spent the past three months hearing everybody in the Ministry and elsewhere tell me that I couldn’t lose my temper with these people I’m trying to get to help me. They would get upset and leave. They would think I was ill-bred and leave. They would hate everything about me if I gave in to my temper. So I didn’t. I think I got pretty good at it.”  
  
He took another step forwards, and Draco found himself flinching as if he was about to be struck, although rationally he knew Potter stood too far away from that.  
  
“I thought I’d handle you the same way,” Potter murmured. “Put up with what you demanded, because it couldn’t touch the core of what’s important. What’s a demonstration of our bond? It could perhaps be important, but it’s probably not going to be. And you ruined it by the way you flailed around and almost jumped on Daphne, anyway.”  
  
Draco screeched at the mention of Daphne’s name. It was an instinctive response, and he wanted to say something about that when Potter’s eyes pinned him again.  
  
But it was rather hard when all the spit in his mouth had dried up at the sight of that green gaze.  
  
“Fine,” said Potter. “I need to tell you this? Then I’ll tell you this. I would live with you and have sex with you and touch you because  _that doesn’t matter._ I won’t stop going to meetings with Muggleborns or going outside the home or being with my friends because  _that matters._  I can do what I have to do. I’ve done it for eighteen years.”  
  
Draco tried to say something. This time, it was utter incomprehension that stopped him.  
  
Potter took another step towards him, and his eyes blazed bright. “But never think that it doesn’t make me angry. It makes me  _fucking furious_. I  _hate_ it. The same way I hated Voldemort being after me. But the times that I gave in to my temper and yelled and smashed things, it never made things any better. So I just learned to listen to people, and hold my tongue, and do politics.”  
  
He folded his arms and paced towards the door. “You’re just politics, Malfoy. Except the least important political duty I have. So I’ll go along with you and the stray thoughts I might have about things that could be good about this bond. I’ll handle you like I handle this stupid scar and all the other liabilities.”  
  
He paused on the threshold of the library and glanced once at Draco. “But if you think I love you?  _Wake the fuck up_.”  
  
He left, and so did the magic that had held Draco against the bookcase. He sagged to the floor, breathing and trying not to give in to the tears that wanted to crowd his eyes.  
  
Granger said nothing, only gathered up her books and left. Draco folded himself into a small ball, his wings sheltering his eyes, and waited for the same self-destructive urge to come upon him that had when he was first refused by Potter.  
  
But nothing happened. It took Draco a few minutes to understand the likely reason.  
  
 _I would live with you and have sex with you and touch you because that doesn’t matter._  
  
His mate would touch him. His mate would live with him. The proper emotions…  
  
Were apparently not a requirement, the way Draco had always learned.  
  
He stayed a long time on the floor of the library, too stunned to feel anything else.


	8. Opportunities and Odd Qualities

“Where is my son?”  
  
Harry took so long to drag his mind back from the speech he was writing that he wasn’t surprised by the glare on Narcissa’s face when he finally looked up.  
  
Not that he could do anything about it. “He was in the library the last I knew,” Harry said, and finished with the last line of the speech. Then he scanned it quickly. He thought it made sense. He was going to be part of a group of people celebrating the reopening of Hogwarts and the four-month anniversary of the war’s ending. He thought that a few references to Dumbledore’s tomb were okay, since that was what they were speaking in front of, but he didn’t want to overdo it. Luckily, it didn’t seem as if he would.  
  
“That answer is not answer enough,” Narcissa said, and put a hand on his desk.  
  
Harry met her eyes without blinking. She was in his rooms, and he had thought that no one would simply stride in and interrupt him here. It showed how foolish he had been, he supposed. “That’s where I left him. If he’s not there, then I don’t know where he is.”  
  
“I have just come from speaking with him.” Narcissa’s head was low, and she hissed at him like Nagini used to. “I know the way that you nearly destroyed him, nearly broke his heart.”  
  
“Then you know where he is, so why are you asking me?”  
  
Narcissa’s lips pursed, and her hand rose. Harry had his wand out in a flash. And that finally made her pause, and look at him as though considering her options.  
  
“You would not dare to curse me,” she said.  
  
“You were moving like you were going to hit me.”  
  
She said nothing, but lowered her hand back to her side, observing him closely. “You know that you will have to endure a great deal in a Veela bond,” she said.  
  
“If he thinks he can abuse me and get away with it, then I’ll disembowel him,” Harry said, and thought it was the calmness of the threat rather than the threat itself that made Narcissa shrink, hands curled in front of her like the husks of butterflies, her eyes so bright and suspicious that Harry thought she might weep.  
  
“It is not—abuse,” said Narcissa at last. “But I know what you did to him in the library. He described it to me. He says that you do not want to be part of the bond at all, that you hate him. A Veela would prefer being disemboweled to hearing that.”  
  
“What do you want me to say?” Harry asked her. “That I welcomed him? No. I thought I was making myself clear enough by going along with everything  _without enthusiasm_. Now I see I wasn’t. I explained things to him. I don’t think anything less clear would be accepted.” He waited, saw her mouth open, and spoke before she could. “You were the one who gave me the clue that I had to, by telling me that this was like a marriage and Malfoy thought he was married to me already. Then I saw that I had to be clear.”  
  
“You were not clear. You were brutal.”  
  
“He thought I wanted him,” Harry said. “That I was his submissive, that I was in love with him. Look. I’m making it clear now that this is political, and for his survival. He has to realize that I’m not the submissive he wants. I’ll give him what I can without disrupting my other commitments.”  
  
“ _This_ should be the most important of your commitments.”  
  
“Let me tell you something,” said Harry. He knew from the slight narrowing of her eyes that he had thrown her off, but he proceeded before she could say something. “I’m selfish. I’m not the great hero that people think I am. I’m not ready to give my life for the world again.”  
  
“It sounded as though you were unselfish enough to consider my son’s needs,” said Narcissa slowly. Harry knew she was turning the words every direction in her mind, finding ways to interpret them that were favorable to what she and Malfoy wanted.  
  
“I’m selfish because I never want to fight a war again.” Harry thought it was probably safe to move his hand away from his wand. Probably. “I’ll give everything else up, sacrifice everything else, for the chance to live in a world at peace. Malfoy might be able to help me with that. He’s already promised some ways he could. So he’s part of it, and I’ll make the sacrifices needed to keep him happy.”  
  
Narcissa was looking sick, but Harry didn’t know why until she almost whispered the words. “No submissive would wish to do that. Privacy—privacy is their home and their heart and their desire.”  
  
Harry shrugged. “I understand that. But I’m not a submissive.”  
  
“Draco is a dominant. There is nothing else you can be.”  
  
Harry wanted to say how much he despised that notion, that only certain things existed and there was no other way for things to be. For the Dursleys, you were normal or a freak. You weren’t a kid terrified out of his wits by the strange things he could do and not understanding anything until your eleventh birthday. He had thought wizards would be better than Muggles about that, but he should have known better. People were people.  
  
“I can apologize to Malfoy. But it won’t be the truth, and I think he’d be able to tell that.”  
  
“Yes, he knows when you lie.”  
  
 _Then how did he mistake what we had so far for enthusiastic consent?_ But Harry thought he probably did know. Malfoy was so proud of his heritage and so sure that anyone else would be thrilled to be part of it, too, that he’d neglected to really pay  _close_ attention to the emotions that surged between them. Harry thought he would now.  
  
“Then I can’t apologize,” said Harry. He laid his hands flat on top of the table, so Narcissa could see there was nothing in them, no weapon or threat. “I explained my position, and I think he understands it.”  
  
Narcissa looked him in the face the way Harry thought she would probably look at the sun, not caring for what it could do to her. “I shall never forgive you for what you have done to Draco. Not if you live a hundred years.”  
  
“Don’t worry, I won’t. I’ll almost certainly be killed in pursuit of the peace process.”  
  
Narcissa did some more staring, her face gone smooth and metallic again. Then she whirled and strode towards the door of the bedroom. Harry watched her until it shut, and then went back to studying his speech again.  
  
*  
  
“Draco? Are you well?”  
  
Draco nodded slowly. He was standing in the middle of his bedroom, flexing his wings, and wondering why it felt as though he was moving them against an invisible net that was closing in from beside him and above. At least he could flap them altogether. That was better than the loss of them.  
  
He had been almost convinced he would lose them after what Potter had said.  
  
He flinched from the memory, and turned towards his mother with a faint smile. It vanished when he saw the way she stood in the doorway with one hand on the frame and watched him. He swallowed and shrugged. “Potter. He—told you something about leaving the house?” It made the most sense, after what he had shouted at Draco.  
  
“No,” said Narcissa. “He told me that he continues to regard you as one of his commitments, but he will do everything in the name of the peace process.”  
  
“I—understand that now, I think,” said Draco. His words came out sore and slow, as though his mouth was the part of him most bruised by Potter, instead of his heart. “He thinks that I’m someone else he needs to serve.” That word felt the strangest of all on his tongue. A month ago, when he had first begun to understand that Potter was his mate, he would have been thrilled by the sound of it. Submissive mates served their dominants out of love, and the dominants accepted out of love.  
  
But that was before Draco had understood what Potter meant by service.   
  
Thinking about it, he supposed, it should have been obvious. Potter didn’t throw himself at the feet of people in the school and beg to help them. What he did was something like throwing his life in front of the Dark Lord’s wand and dying if he needed to. Draco didn’t understand all the details about why he had survived, but he knew one thing. Potter had gone into the Forest expecting to die.  
  
Draco couldn’t comprehend it. To die for one person, yes, he could do that, he would die for his submissive. Or his family. But not so many people. Not a world, a huge abstraction that didn’t have any way to love you back.  
  
“Potter’s service is self-immolation,” Draco told his mother, because she was still staring at him, and her silence waited. “He doesn’t hold back. He doesn’t much care who he hurts, either, I think.”  
  
“He said something about being selfish, and devoting his life to making sure that he never has to fight another war.”  
  
“I can see that.” Draco moved his hand down and touched the scars on his chest. Could even that be part of the reason Potter was doing this? he wondered. Were those part of the sacrifice? He felt sorry for scarring Draco, so he would go as far as sleeping with him and doing a few other things, but nothing else?  
  
Then Draco reached out and touched the tentative connection that was forming between him and his mate, and winced, shaking his head. No, he didn’t think so—hadn’t thought so. The sheer congealing  _throb_ of his mate’s emotions was all spiky, and regret was part of them, but not guilt. Potter seemed to have shed guilt.  
  
 _Except how what he’s doing has guilt written all over it._  
  
Draco nodded as he thought about that. How many lives did Potter regret not saving? How many nightmares tormented him?  
  
 _He thinks that I’m one more person he has to do something to placate. Like the pure-bloods that he’s meeting with, or the Muggleborns. What I want from him is—_  
  
Draco closed his eyes. A hurricane of emotions and emotional colors wanted to overwhelm him, and he wanted to blurt out how different it was and then go flying and find Potter, right now.  
  
But his mother knew how different it was, or should be, and she wasn’t the one that he needed to convince.  
  
“I don’t know what to do,” he whispered. “I understand now, but I need more. I always did.” His mother didn’t ask him to explain that, and Draco was glad, because his words had more than a few implications that he wasn’t proud of. “I can’t just go along and take this loveless bond that he wants to offer me because it would be more  _convenient_.”  
  
“Of course not,” said Narcissa. “I told him that. His only response was telling me that he expected his life to be consumed in the service of the peace process and to imply that he didn’t have time to think about anything else.”  
  
“Did he hope to get married, then?” Draco wished now that he had let Potter keep speaking about Weasley’s sister when he’d had the chance. He wanted to grow claws at the mere thought of her being near his mate, but he had no idea what Potter really wanted. “Who was he going to look for? A politician’s wife?”  _Daphne?_  
  
“He said nothing about it. I do not know.” Draco finally opened his eyes, and saw his mother standing by his bedroom window, looking at the ground far below and frowning. “I do not think that he knows properly, himself. This is something he is so committed to that it seems to have swallowed everything else…”  
  
Draco sighed. “That’s the main problem, then.”  
  
“His political commitments? That he will not value you over them?” His mother gazed at him curiously over her shoulder. “I thought you knew that already.”  
  
“Not that,” Draco said. It was hard to admit this, hard and his throat was lined with acid and his tongue had a bit on it, but he did it anyway. “That—I wanted him to love me like that, to the exclusion of all else, to swallow everything else, and I had a rival that I never even suspected.”  
  
“You  _should_ have had that,” said Narcissa. “I do not know what the destiny in charge of giving mates to Veela is, or exactly what it does. But you need someone to take care of you, and that is not what you received. I am angry.”  
  
“What?” Draco whispered.  
  
“I was expressing—”  
  
“No.” Draco had to sit down, the way he’d had to for almost three hours after what Potter had shouted at him. “You thought I needed someone to take care of me? But it’s the dominant who takes care of the submissive. Why would you—did you really expect me to be a dominant, Mother?”  
  
“If it comes to that,” his mother said, clasping her hands precisely in front of her the way Draco sometimes remembered her doing when talking with his father, “I was not sure. But no one is perfectly sure when the destiny makes the choice, the way that you did not know who your mate would be until then.”  
  
“No,” said Draco. “No. I don’t need someone to take care of me. I need someone to love me, to—follow me the way a submissive follows a dominant, but I didn’t need someone to take care of me.”  
  
“You need someone who would enjoy following you,” said his mother. “Part of that following includes caretaking. Defense of your emotions, not butchering them the way Potter has done. The desire to protect you, not be the one to wound you, as Potter has done. The desire to—”  
  
“That’s what a  _dominant_ is supposed to do for a  _submissive_ ,” Draco said, stunned that he had to say this to her, when she had grown up with the same rules he had, when she had been the one who  _taught_ him most of those rules. “To make them feel comfortable, and loved, and safe. To defend them from danger.”  
  
His mother said nothing.  
  
“The submissive loves the dominant, of course. Stays safe, and does what he’s told to, and cares for the children, and keeps the dominant’s heart safe by keeping himself safe.”  
  
The words were so much wind blown down a long tunnel, from the silence that his mother was preserving. Draco moved in a mad rush. “Are you disappointed that I grew wings and turned out to be the dominant? Because you know no submissive has wings.” They didn’t need them, when they had someone to pick them up and fly them. But the wings were simply a visible indicator of prestige and power, not the only benefit. What really separated submissives and dominants were their attitudes.  
  
“I am not disappointed,” his mother said, and knelt down in front of him with a rustling of her robes. “I may question the choices or the fates or the forces that led you to become so, but I am not disappointed.”  
  
That loosened one string binding Draco’s chest, at least. He cleaned his lungs out with a few deep gulps and murmured, “I need to find some way past this obstacle. If Potter can treat me as an obstacle, I can do the same thing with his bloody political commitments.”  
  
His mother lifted one swiftly protesting hand. Draco glanced at her. “Yes?”  
  
“You say that he prefers self-immolation. I do not want you to be burned along with him.”  
  
Draco shook his head. “One of my goals is to keep him from getting burned, or from dying in the political process, or committing suicide, or whatever it is he thinks he’s doing by dumping his entire life into negotiations.”  
  
His mother gave him a faint smile and shook her head. “What can you do, my dear?” she murmured. “He wants to do this, he will do it.”  
  
“But  _I_ want  _him_ ,” Draco said, and sat up more strongly. “What I need to do is figure out how to make him see that I could help. Or that I’m desirable.” It was humiliating to say that, when a dominant Veela should be desired by his submissive simply in the course of reality, but he said it, and knew from his mother’s nod that she approved.  
  
“If you need him to exist, of course you need to try and reclaim him from this suicidal course,” she said. “The only thing is that I do not see how you can, without flying close enough to singe your wings.”  
  
“There’s one thing I can do,” Draco said, and stood up with his back aching and his throat feeling now as though someone had stuck a hand down it. “Only a first step, but it might make Po—Harry see that I mean business, if I came up with it on my own.” He should be calling his mate by his first name, not his last name, no matter how alienated it made him feel that Harry persisted in addressing him as “Malfoy.”  
  
“What is that?” his mother asked.  
  
“Apologize for attacking Daphne,” Draco said. “And see if that—changes his opinion at all of me.”


	9. Wings and Words

Draco cleared his throat twice before Harry started out of his deep staring at the speech and turned to look at him.   
  
He looked beautiful like that, framed against the light of the enchanted window that looked out over a deep expanse of sea. Draco felt a tug at his heart, an ache, as though someone had reached in, and wrapped their fingers around strings there, and pulled.  
  
He approached Harry with his head low, his wings spread, the kind of posture that a dominant Veela would adopt after he had angered his submissive over something not worth fighting about. He came to an uncertain stop when Harry just watched him, nodding a little. He was neither welcoming nor unwelcoming.  
  
“Did you need me to touch you again?” Harry asked.  
  
 _So direct,_ Draco thought. That was like the Potter—the Harry—that he remembered in school, except different somehow. Then he would just blurt things out and Draco could decide how to respond. Now there was one possibility left open to him, and if it wasn’t the one Harry decided it should be, Draco would scrabble against the wall in vain.  
  
 _When in doubt, go over the wall._ “No,” Draco said. “I came to apologize.”  
  
That at least made Harry blink and look at him instead of faraway political horizons. “For what?”   
  
Draco paused again. He had thought Harry was likely to want, even to demand, an apology for acting the way Draco had towards Daphne. He didn’t know what else he would want, if not that.  
  
“The way I acted around Daphne,” Draco said, and then something that was instinct-like if not actually instinct clogged up his throat. He coughed and continued. “I just—I need to know if you  _do_ want to sleep with her.”  
  
He spoke the words, instead of snarled them, and didn’t lash out and claw someone else’s head off. Honestly, Draco was impressed with himself.  
  
“No,” said Harry, and glanced back at the parchment in his hands, sighing a little. “Was that all you needed to hear?”  
  
“ _No_ ,” Draco snapped, having no idea why Harry was so bloody annoying. He couldn’t extend even a little of that compassion that was driving him to save the world to pay attention to Draco? “I want to know why you don’t want to sleep with her, and why you stopped me from attacking her if you don’t care about her.”  
  
“Wanting to sleep with someone isn’t the same as caring about them,” Harry said, and put the parchment he held down on the desk and turned his full attention to Draco. Draco silently reveled in that even as he swallowed a little at the way Harry’s eyes narrowed. “And I can care that she’s alive without wanting to sleep with her.”  
  
“You don’t want her? In any way?” In truth, Draco thought he would have sensed the desire before now if Harry felt it, but their bond was so damaged that it was hard to be certain.  
  
“No.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
Harry rolled his eyes. “I already told you why.”  
  
“You told me why you wanted her alive,” Draco said, and took another sliding step forwards. Harry only watched him without pushing magic at him the way he had before. Draco decided he could take some comfort from that. “That’s not the same thing as saying why you don’t want to sleep with her.”  
  
Harry glanced away from Draco and out the window. The bond was like a crystal ball that someone had filled with grey water, for all the sense Draco could make out of the swimming patterns in the middle of it.   
  
“I don’t think that romance is going to be an important part of my life,” Harry said. “Not the life I chose for myself. Maybe the life that I would have lived if I wasn’t part of the war and all the rest of it.” He shrugged. “But not this one.”  
  
Draco jerked to a halt. “So that’s why you aren’t that worried at the idea of sleeping with me,” he said. “Because you don’t care about sleeping with someone else.”  
  
Harry’s eyes came slowly back to him. “Not much.”  
  
“How can you—how can you  _not_?” Draco held out one hand, his claws curving up from it. They looked like blades of grass at the moment, no more harmful. He would attack whatever enemy was causing Harry to feel this way, but he thought it must be intangible. “It’s the best thing in life, to be at the heart and center of someone’s desire that way.”  
  
“Not really,” said Harry, and he was smiling in a way that emphasized his teeth and the corners of his face. If Draco hadn’t known better, he would have thought he was looking at the face of another Veela, someone in full attack mode. “I’ve  _been_ desired. At the heart and the center of attention, for a long while. I don’t look forward to it anymore.”  
  
“But you have to realize that doing something like this is going to put you even more at the center of everyone’s attention,” Draco said, the only argument he could think of.  
  
“Doing what? Politics? Trying to stop another war?” Harry shrugged as if the notion didn’t interest him. “Yes, I know. But as I told your mother, I’m selfish. I’m doing this so that  _I_ don’t have to fight another war. And I don’t care if I make myself desirable or likeable to anyone right now. I’ll do this on my own terms.”  
  
“People have to like you to listen to you, to want to stop short of open warfare.” Draco thought they were speaking two different languages. Harry was on the other side of his desk, and it was like being on the other side of the desk from a professor.   
  
Harry half-shrugged. “Oh, sure. But it’s still for a purpose. They’re not admiring me just to admire me anymore. I can take charge of that attention and manipulate it. I just don’t want it focused on me uselessly, with people expecting me to bask in it.” He passed a hand briefly in front of his eyes, as if they stung. “I’m so  _tired_ of the basking.”  
  
“How much of it did you actually do?” Draco’s intention to apologize had vanished along with the apology itself. He didn’t know how well he could pick his way along and whether this was something he  _should_ do. All he knew was that he and Harry were in the same room and conversing like human beings at the moment.  
  
Not like a Veela and his mate. That was still the painful part to Draco. And there were things that he didn’t understand and thought Harry was deliberately obscuring. But this was still a better beginning than he’d anticipated.  
  
“Basking? Not much, I suppose.” Harry shrugged and shuffled through some more sheets of his parchment. “I couldn’t have been what they wanted me to be. Not at first. I’m trying now, but even then, some people would prefer for me to be motionless on the pedestal, not running around and actually doing things.”  
  
Draco blurted out the first thing that came to him, maybe because of a reluctant swirl of colors in his mind. “Is that what you think I want? For you to be motionless on the pedestal?”  
  
Harry paused and looked up at him. Draco snapped his wings open and shut in agitation. He didn’t want to startle Harry, or really remind him that Draco wasn’t human, but he couldn’t help himself.  
  
*  
  
 _At least he managed to put it in words that we could both understand._  
  
Harry was holding himself ready, the way he always did when he was in public these days. Ready to move, ready to use his magic if he had to, ready to use words if he had to. He couldn’t negotiate with Malfoy the way he could with Muggleborns or pure-bloods like the Greengrasses—  
  
 _Assuming the Greengrasses will ever trust me again._  
  
But he thought he might be able to negotiate a different way. These new words suggested it.  
  
“Yes,” Harry said at last.  
  
Malfoy shook his head, smiling at him sweetly, so sweetly. Harry wondered what kind of mate that would have worked on. Only the traditional ones, or was Ron right that lots of people would think it was an honor to be looked at like that, desired like that?  
  
 _But I’ve had lots of people look at me like that._ And they had never seen him. Only the Heir of Slytherin and the Boy-Who-Lived and the perfect boyfriend and the hero who would save them and the enemy who it was okay to hate because he represented everything they despised. The only difference now was that Harry acknowledged he couldn’t stop people from looking at him that way, any more than he could ever have a normal life, so he was happy to use those impressions for a greater struggle.  
  
“I would never require perfection of you,” Malfoy began.  
  
He had to stop, because of the laughter choking out of Harry.  
  
Harry raised his hand to his mouth, shutting off the laughter. He hadn’t even meant to do that. He felt a little guilty, though that was because he hadn’t  _planned_ the stricken expression on Malfoy’s face. If he was going to cause pain, it had better be for a good reason, and something he could use later on.  
  
“You’re shitting me,” Harry said, because he had to, because the laughter had started him down that path. “You wouldn’t require me to be the perfect submissive you were talking about when you came to ‘claim’ me in the Ministry? You wouldn’t want me bowing to you and waiting on you and falling helpless at your feet with desire?  _Really_?”  
  
Malfoy blinked and blinked again. At least the stricken expression had disappeared. Now he just looked puzzled.   
  
“That’s not something most submissives ever have to worry about,” he whispered at last. “They know everything they have to do by instinct.”  
  
“Really.” Harry propped his elbow on his desk and his chin on his fist, so he could look at Malfoy. “And I don’t.  _Now_ do you see why I’m going along with this as much as I have to, and no more than that?”  
  
“No.”  
  
Harry rolled his eyes and replied as calmly as he could, “Because I haven’t the slightest fucking clue what these instincts are, and why it feels good, and why I should go along with them. Because I didn’t grow up with this kind of tradition, and no one ever bothered to explain it.”  
  
“I could teach you,” said Malfoy, and then held a hand up and examined it if as if he was waiting for the claws to disappear.  
  
Harry eyed him for a second. “What would you know about it, though? You said that this is part of instinct, and you either have the instincts or you don’t. I do think this is a shitty situation, for both of us, but I don’t see how you can teach me anything based on instincts that you don’t have.”  
  
“I mean, I can tell you about the traditions.” Malfoy passed his hand over his hair for a second. The claws flickered and disappeared. Harry was just as glad that Malfoy and not him was the one who was part-Veela. He would hate being stuck with weapons you couldn’t rely on for the rest of his life. “And—do you have dominant instincts?”   
  
He sounded as though he was dreading the reply, but Harry leaned forwards and replied, “No. I don’t have any sort of instincts.”  
  
Once again, Malfoy paused, and his eyes were so uncertain. Harry wondered why. As far as he was concerned, he had proposed a reasonable compromise. After all, it wasn’t as though he was going to date anyone or sleep with anyone else, and put their bond in jeopardy. He just didn’t have  _time_ for that shit. Maybe he could learn the traditions and that would be enough.  
  
“But you have to have one set,” Malfoy said. He twitched for a second as though someone was pulling on his wings, then set his jaw and continued. “My mother told me that she thought I might be the submissive. Even with the wings. Then it would make sense that you would take over the role of the dominant.”  
  
“Do you want to know what I think?” Harry had checked on his watch while Malfoy was rambling on. He had seven minutes before he had to Floo. He thought that might be enough time to make it clear to Malfoy what he was dealing with here.  
  
“Yes,” said Malfoy, and his voice was so desperate and his eyes were so hopeful.  
  
Harry experienced a familiar sinking sensation in the center of his chest. It was the same one he’d got when he realized that a lot of people were still depending on him to save the world after the war, to guide them into peace and happily ever after. No matter where he went, he couldn’t escape those expectations. At least he had learned to embrace them on his own terms.  
  
He didn’t understand why Malfoy was different, why he couldn’t embrace  _those_ requirements on his own terms.  
  
“I think the whole idea is mental,” said Harry. “Let’s assume for a second that this is a loving relationship. You did say that love is part of the arrangement?”  
  
“For the dominant and the submissive both.” Malfoy sounded firmer when he was discussing something he absolutely knew. Harry thought that was good. It meant he felt less sorry for the poor bastard.   
  
“Then I’d think that two people who love each other wouldn’t just do the same thing all the time,” said Harry. “I mean, sometimes they would. But sometimes one of them would make love to the other person, and sometimes one of them would cook dinner—”  
  
“I told you, you won’t have to do chores like that. That’s why I have house-elves.”  
  
“Do you want to know what I think or not?” Harry snapped, with another sideways glance at his watch.  _Five minutes._  
  
“Yes,” Malfoy said, and his wings drooped a little.  
  
Harry sighed. “Sorry for snapping at you.” At least that brought the wings back up, and relieved a little of his guilt. “My point is, I think that people who are in a marriage with each other, or love relationship, or  _whatever_ this is supposed to be, would do different things. It would depend on how much they loved each other, and who was tired, and whether someone wanted to be quiet that night or talk a lot, and whether they both wanted to sleep together or not. How comfortable they were around each other. How big their house was.”  
  
“Yes?” Malfoy’s face had gone polite and smooth the way Harry had sometimes seen it when he was speaking to professors at Hogwarts.  
  
“Oh, for  _fuck’s_ sake,” Harry said.  _Three minutes_. “ _Listen_. I can’t have a normal relationship, I accept that, there’s too much going on, but if I could that’s what I’d want. Not one where things are the same all the time. Not one where someone was always commanding and always protecting and the other person lay back and massaged their feet. Or got their feet massaged,” he added, because Malfoy was opening his mouth again, probably with another advertisement for the services of his house-elves. “I don’t  _care_  about being dominant or submissive. I’m neither because I reject your whole crazy system. I stand outside it, and I’m going to go on standing outside it.”  
  
“Even if you sleep with me?” Malfoy’s wings quivered again.  
  
 _Why is that so important to him?_ Yes, it had felt nice when Harry was able to kiss Ginny, and maybe it would even feel nice when he kissed Malfoy. But there were more important things than who was sleeping with whom. The  _Prophet_ and its constant stories about him had dulled any appeal gossip like that had for Harry, and some people’s obsession with it had dulled for him as well.  
  
“I’ll do what I need to do to make sure that you’re all right,” Harry said. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to enjoy sex the way I suppose a submissive would.”  
  
Malfoy shook his head. “But when Veela mate—”  
  
“I know it’s usually different,” Harry interrupted, and gathered up his parchments.  _Thirty seconds._ “But you usually get a pure-blood who’s been raised in the wizarding world or at least has some idea it exists before they’re eleven. This time, you got a half-blood. Sorry. And I have to  _go_ or I’ll be late to deliver this speech.”  
  
“That’s the worst fate you can think of?”  
  
“No, war is the worst fate I can think of,” Harry snapped at him, and began to bustle towards the stairs. “And sometimes Kingsley hints that wars could start over the color of my robes, so my being late would really give them a reason.”  
  
“I can fly you down the stairs,” Malfoy offered, spreading his wings. “And that way, you’ll probably arrive on time.”  
  
Harry wanted to think about it, but there was no time to think about it. It seemed like there were no time for anything these days, except frantic work. “Sure,” he said, and extended a hand, thinking Malfoy would snatch it and whirl him into the air, like Side-Along Apparition except a longer distance.  
  
Instead, Malfoy picked him up, cradling him close. His breath was warm in Harry’s ear, and his wings unfolded and they rose into the air with a powerful but gentle bound, as though they had floated off a cloud, and landed next to the Floo in the nearest sitting room at the bottom of the stairs. Harry hadn’t actually noticed them swooping through the doorway of that room, so swift and soft had it been.  
  
He blinked, nodded to find his feet on the floor, said, “Thanks, Malfoy,” and tossed in the Floo powder.  
  
Malfoy came with him, holding his wings carefully to his sides and away from the sides of the fireplace. He didn’t try to touch Harry other than the necessary pressing when they stumbled out of the Floo together, though. Harry found himself relaxing.  
  
 _Maybe he’s thinking about this and why I don’t fit in, a little. Maybe he is.  
_


	10. Speeches and Spectators

“Thank you for coming here today.”  
  
Draco spread his wings involuntarily as he saw glances traveling towards him. Yes, he understood that they were surprised to see him here; there were probably people who hadn’t heard about Harry’s Veela bond, and others who were surprised that a dominant had let his submissive appear in public at all, and some who wanted to sneer at him. But he only wished they would stop  _staring_ so much. They had seen now, there was no reason to go on thinking that Harry was alone or unmated, could they stop looking at him?  
  
Of course, there were also people he wished would stop looking at Harry. Daphne Greengrass was in the front row of chairs before the little stage set up in front of Dumbledore’s tomb, which still loomed, huge and white, behind them. Daphne might have been looking at a patch of blank air instead of Draco, but Harry also might have been a blazing comet.  
  
Draco shifted in his chair. He, Granger, Weasley, Shacklebolt, and several Ministry officials Draco didn’t recognize had seats behind Harry. Draco had looked around for a chair Harry could use, and didn’t find one.  
  
He turned back to Daphne. There was no doubt that it was deliberate, now. Before, she might have wanted Harry without knowing he had a Veela mate, since Harry hadn’t known it himself. But this was a pointed insult. A biting insult.  
  
Draco showed his teeth, the one concession to instinct he could make in front of an audience, and got ready to spread his wings if she kept on. At least Harry wasn’t far from him, and his voice was calm and measured, and Draco could sweep him off his feet and carry him away if she tried anything.  
  
“I know that the man buried behind me would rejoice to see the first motions towards peace we’re making.” The day was overcast, humid, and Harry looked like the brightest thing in the world as he slowly looked around. He wore a set of green robes Draco had to grudgingly admit looked nice, although he would have prepared to dress Harry with his own hands. “He trusted a man who had the Dark Mark on his arm to murder him, and play a long game. He trusted someone who had a connection with Voldemort to walk into the Forest and sacrifice himself. You could say he made mistakes, not enough contingency plans, too many opportunities for things to go wrong.”  
  
Harry paused, and rifled his papers. Draco wondered if he was the only one who saw the taut muscles in his mate’s back and neck, if he was the only one who knew what that  _meant_.  
  
“But I say, that’s what trust is.” Harry’s voice was muffled. He craned his neck around to look at the tomb, and Draco blinked. The expression on Harry’s face didn’t match the deep, reluctant emotions that Draco could feel crawling down the bond towards him. “To reach out and tap people on the shoulder and ask them to join with you in some grand enterprise, without the ability to force them.”  
  
Draco’s wings twitched again. What Dumbledore had done, as far as relying on Harry, went a lot further than  _trusting_ him.  
  
But those were things to argue about later. Draco wanted to prove that he could be a political asset, if politically was the way that Harry meant to deal with him. So he sat still, and only his hands driving into the chair might have told someone what he was feeling.  
  
From the gleam in her focused eyes, they told Daphne.  
  
“He trusted me,” Harry continued, and he leaned forwards, as if he had wings of his own to spread that would let him loom over the audience. “He wanted me to do as he’d asked, but he couldn’t make me. Well, I can’t make you, either.” His gaze was fastened on the enthralled audience, and Draco thought he could have asked them to charge the Ministry en masse and they would have done it. “But I can  _ask_ that you consider peace, that you ask yourself whether being able to live ordinary lives in the wizarding world is really worth less than what you might believe about blood purity.”  
  
The words were ordinary, the moment not so. Draco could feel it trembling like a soap bubble, shimmering with tension and beauty, and he didn’t think it was only his mate bond with Harry that made him feel that way.  
  
Harry stepped back and popped the bubble himself, with a soft smile that Draco could feel the effect of even though he wasn’t seeing it full on. “That’s what this is all about. I’ve had some people tell me that I could command people to stop fighting, and they would listen to me. Or I could command them to start being nice to werewolves, or listen to the Ministry and let them mediate disputes instead of turning them into duels, or I could tell them to free house-elves.” Draco didn’t think he mistook the flickering glance Harry turned towards Granger. “But it doesn’t work like that. What I want is for people to do this of their own free will.”  
  
He spread his hands. “You don’t have to do it for really good reasons. I’m doing this because I’m so selfish that I never want to fight another war.”  
  
A few other people in the audience laughed, although not Daphne, who was leaning forwards with her hands folded as though in prayer. Draco shook his head. Harry was telling them everything they wanted to hear, sure, but also the truth. He wondered idly who was going to get into trouble for ignoring it.  
  
 _Daphne._ She was already in trouble with Draco himself, but Draco doubted that she would have got any satisfaction out of Harry even if he wasn’t Draco’s mate.  
  
(And he was doing well, he knew he was, by being able to think about the political implications without trying to rip her apart).  
  
Harry didn’t want someone who wanted the Chosen One. He might accept someone who offered a partnership to the political man—Draco was rather counting on that—but that would always stop short of that person becoming besotted with him.   
  
“Your own free will,” Harry said again, snapping Draco’s attention back to him. Once he was looking at him again, Draco wondered why in the world he had ever wanted to look away. Harry was beautiful in everything, from the line of the arm he raised to the pure and unwavering way he met the eyes of the people looking at him. “That’s what’s most important here. More important than  _anything_ else. What matters is that you commit yourselves to this fully, if you do.”  
  
“Not all of us can be crusaders like you are, Harry,” said Kingsley Shacklebolt, standing up and giving a little bow to Harry. Draco started a snarl, but from the way Harry turned around and smiled, this interruption was totally planned.  
  
“I know that, but you can decide that your ordinary lives are worth more than any temporary satisfaction you might get out of killing your enemies,” Harry said, and turned back to sweep the crowd with his gaze. “Think about it. What would have happened if the war had continued, or if Voldemort had won it?” Some people still flinched at the name, but not as many as Draco would have thought, so enraptured were they. “Could you have continued going shopping in Diagon Alley and feuding with your neighbors and complaining about the Ministry and raising your children and sending them to Hogwarts?”  
  
Draco could feel the mental recalibration in some of the audience. That was clever, he had to admit, to make them think about it that way, not in terms of the great abstractions they would have lost, but the general activities, the small things that actually made up their lives.  
  
“That’s right,” Harry said, and made a sweep in front of him as though he was splashing water away. “He would have changed  _everything,_ because he couldn’t stand not being worshiped and the center of his followers’ lives. He probably would have exiled all the half-bloods from Hogwarts, Marked the pure-blood children at sixteen, and driven the Muggleborns into hiding. He’d already taken over the Ministry. And he wouldn’t have been content with the British wizarding world, either. He would have insisted on conquering other countries and taking over the Muggle political scene.” This time, the gesture he made was of dumping water on top of something. “Nothing ever satisfied him. You would have spent your lives in service to him, and wondered how it happened this way.”  
  
The audience nodded again. Draco looked around at them, forcing his gaze away from Harry and then from Daphne, and realized something that made him open his mouth, then close it again. He wasn’t about to interrupt Harry’s moment.  
  
Harry might think he was getting through to them with his speech. In a way, he was. He was at least making them rethink the desirability of war. But dozens of the people here, if not the majority, would change their minds because it was Harry Potter asking them to.  
  
Not because they really believed in what he was saying.  
  
Draco raised a hand to his mouth so that he could muffle some of the squeaks that wanted to escape. He would look undignified, sitting there and fighting back silly noises while Harry wrapped up his triumphant speech.  
  
But that was real. It was  _true._ Harry thought he could persuade everyone to do what he wanted and leave them absolutely free to make the decision. And it was true that he sounded more rational than Draco had thought he would, not using as many emotional appeals or the plain, blunt demand that they agree with him that most Gryffindors would have.  
  
It was impossible to leave people completely free when you had the degree of fame and power that Harry did, though. (And Draco would probably add his beauty to that). Daphne wanted him even though Harry didn’t want her to.  
  
(Draco stripped off a few bits of wood from the chair).  
  
There would always be someone who did what they did because they dreamed of Harry’s approval, dreamed of meeting him and seeing that smile. Draco wondered if Harry had any idea that most of those shining eyes in the audience didn’t shine because of the peace he was preaching, but just because of  _him_.  
  
“So,” Harry finished, and flung out an arm so that he was pointing to the tomb behind them. “Pay attention to the sacrifice that Dumbledore made for us.  _Please._ He was the major one who stood against Voldemort. Not me. He was the one who organized the Order of the Phoenix and fought a whole war before I was even born. And he was the one who achieved the victory in the end, even though he had to take risks to do it.”  
  
 _He played with your life to do it,_ Draco thought, his own thoughts clear enough to make him start, because Veela normally didn’t think that way in opposition to their mates.  _And Professor Snape’s life. Even if you can forgive him, have you asked Snape’s portrait if he could?_  
  
“So let’s celebrate what he did, what he stood for.” Harry lifted his head, as if looking straight up to the sun hidden behind the clouds. “The peace that he would have wanted, and the chance to let everyone make their own choices. He did what he had to do during the war, and so did I. But ideally, no one will ever again have to make the choice to walk into the Forbidden Forest and stand there in front of a Killing Curse. Let’s—let’s try and make sure that we preserve that freedom for other people, too.”  
  
His voice caught on the last words, and several people rose to their feet, applauding. Draco shook his head. Harry was incredible, but more in his presence and his deeds than his words. He could probably be an exceptional speechmaker someday, but right now, he wasn’t.  
  
Harry, though, stood there and accepted their tribute as the tribute to his words, and probably to what he thought were Dumbledore’s ideals. Draco didn’t need their bond to know that, although the bond leaped and thrummed with enough thoughts that he knew it with the greater clarity.  
  
Draco was proud of Harry, though, for being so understandable—Draco understood him better than he had only a few minutes ago—and for being so humble. He said that he didn’t have the instincts of a submissive Veela mate, but Draco thought he did, kind of. They were simply turned sideways. Instead of being humble and grateful for the protection of a dominant against a harsh world, Harry was humble about achieving great things.  
  
Draco thought he would grow used to it, and understand it, in time.  
  
People were coming forwards to ask questions and tell Harry what a great speech he’d made. Draco kept himself sitting there, relaxed. None of them seemed to be a threat to Harry.  
  
And then Daphne climbed up on stage.  
  
*  
  
Harry tensed the minute he saw Daphne coming. He had been thinking about the speech, which seemed to be a successful one, and he thought he might have reached some of the people who had been the most stubborn about listening to him before. They were certainly coming up to shake his hand and ask questions about how they could help with the peace process.  
  
And then someone he had thought was an ally, and now had to accept had probably just pretended to ally with him in order to get into his pants, was right there, smiling sweetly into his eyes.  
  
“No,” Harry said to her, instinctively. He thought it was the only thing that might have made her pause in the way she reached out to him.  
  
“Has the Veela got hold of you so quickly, Harry?” Daphne looked past him. Harry didn’t have to turn to know that Malfoy was coming out of his chair; he could see the shadow of those wings moving on the stage. “I thought you were resisting him. That you had something less than desire for him.”  
  
“It has nothing to do with me wanting him, and everything to do with the fact that you provoked him on purpose.”  
  
That made Daphne turn back to him, a new look in her eyes. Harry half-nodded. Yes, she had thought he wouldn’t catch that. She had underestimated him.   
  
Lots of people did that, but then again, they tended to be Death Eaters and Dark Lords. Harry didn’t want to think about Daphne inside either rank.  
  
“I didn’t,” Daphne said, but even if Harry had believed her before, he thought he would have laughed now at the lame way she said it.  
  
“Yes, you did,” Harry said. “There’s no way that you didn’t know what a dominant Veela looked like, as a pure-blood.” He moved back a step from her, not because he thought she would try to touch him again, but because he could hear Malfoy standing. He didn’t want any casualties there, the same way he didn’t want allies who lied to him. “And if you want me, then you were lying about your primary motive for being in the alliance. If you provoked him for another reason, then you were lying about wanting peace. You could have got someone  _killed_.”  
  
Daphne just stared and stared. Harry was starting to hope that she hadn’t been trying to seduce him after all. Why would she want a  _stupid_ husband?  
  
“I lied about neither,” Daphne finally murmured. Malfoy was right behind Harry now. Harry could feel the brush of a wing against his shoulder. He still didn’t turn around, because he couldn’t see the need. “I—Harry, the only thing that I want is you, at my side. And then together we can turn the wizarding world around.”  
  
“I don’t want to turn the wizarding world around on anything except the issue of peace,” Harry said tiredly.  _This is always the way it is. Except with Ron and Hermione._ So many people who turned out to only want to use him. Malfoy might put himself in a different category, but the way he had described the bond he wanted to Harry, it was the same thing again. At least he was being quiet about it right now, though, and not tearing Daphne to small and screaming shreds.  
  
“That embraces everything else.”  
  
Malfoy tried to lunge. It was probably the word “embraces,” Harry thought.  
  
Harry leaned backwards and cast a Shield Charm at the same time. The Shield Charm shut off that part of the stage from Malfoy’s reach, and Harry nearly fell until Malfoy turned and caught him. Harry had hoped that would happen, that Malfoy’s supposed instincts would push him to protect his mate before anything else. If Harry had to live with this bond he didn’t want, then he was going to use it just like he used his fame.  
  
“It doesn’t,” he told Daphne, and turned to Malfoy. “Do you want to go home now?” Diverting Malfoy’s heavy-lidded attention from Daphne was a good thing, he thought.  
  
Malfoy’s response was a noise that reminded Harry a lot of Dudley. Harry sighed and stepped backwards, away from Daphne, softly crowding Malfoy back from the Shield Charm.  
  
“She wants you,” Malfoy whispered into the back of his neck, which at least meant it wasn’t aloud, and therefore embarrassing.  
  
Harry only nodded. It wasn’t something he could dispute when he had the evidence living and breathing right in front of him.  
  
Even if he would have  _liked_ to dispute it, because he had wanted to think that things had changed. But it was better to accept bitter reality and work with it than hope for too long.  
  
“You won’t let me destroy her?”  
  
Harry shook his head sharply. No matter what Malfoy thought, Harry still had a political life. He would accept the bond with Malfoy because it was there and it existed. But he wouldn’t let him commit murder. There was  _some_ way that someone would take this and twist it around to blame Harry. The Greengrass family, if no one else.  
  
One of the things that Harry had had to give up was revenge, at least for personal reasons.  
  
“Then let’s go,” Malfoy said, and wrapped his arms around Harry, and spread his wings.  
  
This time, he seemed to spring straight off the stage. Harry leaned back in his embrace, for a second tightening the hold of his hands on Malfoy’s arms. He wanted to fly under his own power, he wanted to be on a broom, he had to wonder what the people watching from the crowd would say if they saw them—  
  
But then they were soaring, passing as fast as a shadow over the ground, over any and all obstacles, and it was wonderful enough to choke off some of his objections.  
  
Malfoy sighed and nuzzled into his shoulder. Harry reckoned that he could feel Harry’s relaxation and was letting him have some thanks for it.  
  
Harry said nothing. There wasn’t much to be said right now. But he gave Malfoy his relaxation the way Malfoy had given him his acceptance of not killing Daphne, and they flew back to the Manor at least in companionable silence, if nothing more.


	11. Interviews and Introductions

Narcissa stood up briskly when they came through the Floo and spoke to Malfoy, as far as Harry could tell. “There’s someone I would like you to meet.”  
  
“Not someone who you want to be another mate for me,” said Malfoy, and his hand seemed to grow heavier on Harry’s shoulder. Harry didn’t know how he was doing that, when his hand was already resting there, but that was the way it felt. “I have all the mates I want right now.” A second later, he settled his chin on Harry’s free shoulder.  
  
Harry stood still under it. He couldn’t say that he was resigned to being the submissive mate Malfoy wanted, but on the other hand, he had no reason to please Narcissa either, with her cool temper and cooler dismissal of his concerns.  
  
“You place the worst interpretation on my words, as usual,” said Narcissa. This time, Harry thought she might be speaking to both of them, because she seemed to be looking between Harry’s eyes, directly at his lightning bolt scar. “I mean no harm. I mean to bring someone into the equation who may help you.”  
  
From the way Malfoy tensed behind Harry, he had no idea who that could be. That at least reassured Harry they were somewhere on the same level of misinformation.  
  
And from the way Malfoy was standing there, as helpless before his mother as Harry had to admit he probably would have been before his if she was still alive, Harry knew he was the one who had to take charge. "What do you mean, someone who can help us? Is this someone who knows why the bond isn't working the way it's supposed to?" Even those words made him want to grimace, but he nodded and bore with it when Narcissa made a heavy gesture.  
  
"Even better," said Narcissa. If she disliked Harry even more than usual, she was at least hiding it more easily now than she had been. "Someone who is in a Veela bond, and has been for a long time, so they might tell you what it is supposed to be like."  
  
"Malfoy can tell me what it's supposed to be like," Harry said at once. He already didn't like where this was going. It sounded like having the Ministry bring in a supposed expert Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, and look where  _that_ had gone. "I don't see why we need someone to repeat the information that we already know. What we need to know is what's different about us, not a litany of changes we should make because ancient Veela tradition says so."  
  
“Maybe it would help," said Malfoy, his chin moving around a minute as if Harry's shoulder had become uncomfortable and he wanted to find a different place. "Someone who can feel the bond between us. Some Veela can, you know. Feel others' bonds."  
  
Harry, though, had thought of something else. "Were you thinking of asking a dominant or a submissive?" he asked Narcissa.   
  
Narcissa looked down her nose at him without moving her head, a talent that Harry would have liked to master for the sake of dealing with some of the idiots in the peace talks. "A dominant, of course. A submissive would be at home where they belong."  
  
"Yeah, no," said Harry, and gave her a smile that she was welcome to take as pleasant if she wanted; it made no difference to Harry. "I don't want to speak with yet another person whose major problem with me is that I'm not cowering and whimpering."  
  
"I have told you, and Draco should have told you," said Narcissa, her eyes for a moment stabbing past Harry and focusing on Malfoy. "Submission is not like that. Submission means warmth and protection and being held. There are times that I wished my son would become one, because then he would have someone to always take care of him."  
  
"You keep wanting to make me into something I'm not," said Harry slowly, enjoying the way the words crept out of his mouth, "instead of working with what I  _am_. I don't like it. I don't want to talk to someone who's going to repeat the same useless truths to me, I told you."  
  
"In that case, it is good that I won't repeat them," said a casual voice from the doorway. "And while Mrs. Malfoy may have asked me to come, I am not going to to do just what she wants. I will work with the truth of the bond and the mates in front of me."  
  
Harry turned, not liking either the way Malfoy had started hissing into his ear or the fact that he hadn't heard this person enter the room. He couldn't afford to start getting careless like that when lives could depend on his instincts.  
  
The Veela in the doorway was definitely a dominant. His wings were longer and smoother than Malfoy's, though, his feathers a kind of shimmering cream color that dulled into gold and white near the edges. He gave a slight bow to Harry, and then focused his eyes on Malfoy and said, "You are not making him comfortable by holding onto him like that, you know."  
  
Malfoy said nothing, as he had said nothing in English the past few minutes, but continued with his hissing. The Veela sighed and glanced at Harry. "I can see that part of the problem is that you were raised in the Muggle world, but the problems run deeper than that. Is there a room where we might sit down and spend some time talking over this?"  
  
Harry shrugged, deliberately resisting the way that Malfoy's hands and claws pulled at him. "I don't know. It's not my house. Ask them."  
  
“It is the house of the submissive,” the dominant began, sounding bewildered, but stopped when Harry groaned and shook his head.   
  
“Not you, too,” said Harry. He thought maybe the depth of the weariness in his words convinced the Veela, because he had already seen that it wasn’t his words themselves. “I don’t think that way, and they haven’t made any effort to tell me I should do anything but kiss Malfoy’s feet and stay home all day. Ask them where we can go.”  
  
The Veela took another long look at him, and then maybe realized that Harry was doing nothing but telling the truth, because he turned around with a faint frown and looked at Narcissa. “You did not tell me about this when we spoke.”  
  
“You are here to convince him,” Narcissa said, icily enough that Harry almost choked. From the way that the dominant’s wings convulsed, the insult was even worse to a Veela, somehow, although Harry really didn’t understand that much about why. “I warned you when I summoned you of that.”  
  
“You convinced me to come,” said the dominant. “You did not summon me.” And now Harry could feel another aura of magic pushing at his, hard enough to make Harry sigh and want to withdraw into another room. He couldn’t with Malfoy still clinging to him, though.  
  
“Very well,” said Narcissa, but she looked as if she was prepared to continue arguing on other grounds if she had to. Harry interrupted ruthlessly.  
  
“Look, can we just get this conversation over with?” he asked. “I really need to sleep, and then I have a speech to write.”  
  
“You are politically active?” The dominant was staring at him as though he had sprouted wings of his own.  
  
“ _Yes_ ,” said Harry. He supposed that this Veela must be living somewhere that didn’t often get the  _Daily Prophet,_ or he would have known that. “Let’s just go somewhere.” He yanked on Malfoy’s arm, and at least the prat let him go long enough to step up by his side and spread his wings to shield Harry from the dominant’s sight. Harry sighed. He didn’t much enjoy having a face full of feathers.  
  
“This situation is more complicated than I had realized.” The dominant made a sound in his throat that Harry thought might be a growl. Malfoy stiffened, but the Veela spoke on. “I saw an open door to a room with light and wide walls, a room where we might fly if we have to. Shall we retire there?”  
  
Harry shrugged and followed Malfoy when he moved. He assumed something had been decided, and that was enough for him. This was a meeting he would just have to suffer through.  
  
*  
  
Draco didn’t like having another dominant this close to Harry. He was  _amazed_ how much he didn’t like it.  
  
He wanted to take to the air and swoop at the Veela, someone who was much more in control of his power than Draco was. It would hurt if he tangled with him. But Draco wasn’t properly bonded to his mate yet, and another dominant could, at least in theory, prove himself more attractive and draw Harry away.  
  
 _So that’s one thing that’s working the way it’s supposed to,_ Draco decided when he stepped into Broad Drawing Room behind the dominant and discovered that he couldn’t make himself shut the door.  _The possessiveness and protective instincts that are supposed to come along with the wings._  
  
“My name is Aloren,” said the Veela, and Draco didn’t know whether it was a first name or a surname. He only knew that Aloren was bowing a little, his wings spread, and that took away some of his grudge.  
  
“Draco Malfoy,” said Draco, when he could remember politeness and force his voice through the clog that had taken up residence in his throat.  
  
“Harry Potter, of course,” Harry said, and Draco frowned at him a little as he took a seat near the door. “What did you want to tell us?”  
  
“The damage to your bond,” said Aloren, taking a seat on a couch himself and crushing his wings a little, which further soothed Draco’s fears that he might try to fly and dazzle Harry, “is extensive. I’ve never seen such gaping wounds.”  
  
Draco couldn’t help mantling a little at the pity in his voice, but he did glance over his shoulder at Harry to see how he was taking this. He  _had_ to acknowledge there was something wrong with the bond now, didn’t he? And he would have to acknowledge, as well, that they should do something about it.  
  
But Harry was rubbing his forehead as if he had a headache. Draco sucked in a breath and moved back to his side.  
  
“Are you all right?” he asked, and touched Harry’s scalp himself. He thought Harry had tensed to keep from pulling away, but he was too relieved that Harry was letting Draco touch him to care that much. “Is your scar hurting?”  
  
“That hasn’t happened since Voldemort fell,” said Harry, giving him an odd look, and ignoring his flinch at the name in a way that Draco wished he wouldn’t. There was the chance that Harry would say it again soon if he didn’t think the flinch was a big deal. Harry turned to look at Aloren. “I didn’t grow up in the wizarding world. That’s probably why.”  
  
“And you were never taught the proper duties of a submissive?” Aloren’s wings lifted and fluttered once, and Draco tensed, but then they draped across the back of his couch again. “No, this is a very rare situation.”  
  
Draco took his place behind Harry, his hand resting tightly on Harry’s shoulder. Harry clucked his tongue once, in what seemed like exhaustion, but made no attempt to shrug Draco off. “Yes, it is. And I’ll put up with it as much as I can so that Draco doesn’t die, but I need to go on living my life.” Draco opened his mouth to say something, but shut it again. They had already argued so much about Harry going out and living his political life that Draco didn’t know what he could add.  
  
Aloren folded his hands and rested his chin on top of them. “You have no idea what a real bond is supposed to be like?”  
  
Harry shrugged. “No one ever explained it to me. From what one of my pure-blood friends said, it’s rare that it happens even to someone who did grow up here. And that means I didn’t concern myself with it.”  
  
“You need to concern yourself with it now,” Draco said. He couldn’t  _help_ himself. It hurt him beneath his breastbone to hear Harry talking so dismissively about their bond.  
  
Harry turned around as if he was going to snap, but Aloren intervened. “It’s more than that,” he said. “I would know if the mere problem was that the bond hadn’t taken on your side. But there are more wounds than that.”  
  
Harry shrugged again. Draco was getting tired of that shrug, but Harry would probably take it the wrong way if Draco tried to stop him from making it. “We used to be rivals. That probably has something to do with it, too.”  
  
“Will you permit me?” Aloren held up his hands and tilted his head back to look at Draco.  
  
Instinctively, Draco knew what he wanted to do. He felt his back ripple and his wings arch. It was hard to keep his voice polite. “As long as you remember that I’ll fly at your throat the instant you do something to hurt him or take him away.”  
  
“You don’t have to  _worry_ about that.” Harry’s voice was low, and Draco found it even harder to tell what emotion filled it than usual.  
  
“I want to keep you safe,” Draco said, and took a chance, and dipped his head so that he could nestle his cheek along Harry’s. The smell of his skin was overwhelming that close, and so were the warmth and the trembling pulse in his throat. “Please. Let me? You’re so important to me. I want to keep you safe.”  
  
Harry hesitated for a long moment, and Draco feared that he would be difficult again. Then Harry leaned his head back, rolling it on the chair, and said, “Fine.”  
  
Draco looked up, and found that Aloren was going ahead with the Veela magic that Draco had known he wanted to perform. Draco gave a low growl, but he stayed put. He had granted his permission, and it was more important to stay here and defend his mate than it was to chase Aloren out of the room.  
  
But it was so  _hard_ to watch as their bond appeared on the air in front of Draco, written in swirls of silvery fire. This was private. Even if most Veela couldn’t see the connection that bound them to their mates, feeling it instead, Draco still felt as though someone had tried to rip Harry’s clothes off.  
  
He saw the fire wisp and form symbols that looked like letters, and frowned. He had seen the spell performed once before, when he was young, at a wedding that he had attended with his parents, and his first thought was that Aloren had done it wrong. “Isn’t it supposed to look like a cord of light stretching between your hands?” he asked. He knew one hand would represent him and one would represent Harry.  
  
“It  _should_ ,” agreed Aloren, with a dry sound in his voice, and took a quick look at Harry that resulted in him sighing and turning his head away a second later. “It should indeed. But this bond is so torn that this is all I can bring forth.”  
  
Draco stared. It wasn’t ripped and tattered, the way Aloren had described it, was his first thought. It was almost nonexistent.  
  
“Why does it look like that?” Harry asked harshly. Draco glanced down at him. He was leaning forwards in the chair, with one hand closed around the arm. He looked offended. Draco found himself perking up, surprisingly. Perhaps this was something that could stir Harry into taking an interest in the bloody bond.   
  
“Because of these,” said Aloren, and drew his wand, this time glancing at Harry. Harry didn’t even see the implied request for permission—necessary when a Veela was casting in front of the submissive who was the heart of the house—so Draco caught Aloren’s eye and nodded instead.  
  
Aloren cast a spell that made several otherwise invisible spots at the ends of the silver ropes light up and twinkle with a black radiance. “These represent the places that the bond should find an anchor in both your souls,” he said.   
  
“And I don’t have those anchors, because I’m not a natural submissive.” Harry sounded as though he was relaxing again.  
  
“No,” said Aloren. “That is, you do lack those anchors, but you also have  _these_.” His wand slashed again, and several more places appeared, black and jagged. Draco caught his breath. Yes, those looked like wounds.  
  
“What are those, then?” Draco was a little shocked that Harry could speak so calmly of things that looked so ugly and dangerous.  
  
“These represent places where certain things were  _ripped_ out of you.” Aloren kept his wings carefully pinned behind his back, which was good, Draco thought, as he would have taken on the posture of a courting dominant otherwise, and Draco would have had to approach him and rip his lungs out. “I believe your experiences in the war may have done some of the damage. But some of these wounds are—it is hard to explain how I know this. That is one reason I sought permission to make the bond visible. But they are older than that.”  
  
This time, Draco felt stiffness flood down Harry’s back and neck, and the next instant, he had pushed himself out of his chair. For a moment, the bond pulsed with Harry’s emotions, shock foremost among them. Draco understood why he was getting such a cloudy sense of them now. They had to travel down the barest smattering of a conduit between them.  
  
“I had a lot of bad experiences at Hogwarts, leading up to the war.”  
  
“Older than that,” said Aloren, and there was enough pity in his tone to finally calm Draco down and make him dismiss Aloren as a threat. The man wouldn’t want someone he would have to support that much, someone who could barely bond with a Veela.  
  
“Fuck you,” Harry whispered, and for a second, Draco thought he would use his magic again, the invisible hand that had pinned Draco to a wall. But instead, Harry spun and stalked out of the sitting room.  
  
“What was that?” Aloren asked Draco directly, equal to equal.  
  
Draco had to shake his head. “I have no idea.”  
  
“I suggest you find out, soon.” Aloren’s wings were settling to his back again, and he stared after Harry with trouble in his eyes. “Those wounds might hurt more than the bond, if you leave them on him.”


	12. Readiness and Reluctance

Harry didn’t stop running, or hurrying, along until he got to his bedroom. Then he shut the door behind him and stood there for a second with his eyes shut. He wondered if he could trust Narcissa and Malfoy, and now Aloren, not to intrude on him while he was here.  
  
Then he snorted in bitterness. Of  _course_ not. Hadn’t Narcissa already come in when she wanted to, simply because she wanted to talk to him? And Malfoy would  _pity_ him now that Aloren had said what he said about the bond. He wouldn’t think there was anything wrong with  _him_  because the bond wouldn’t take. He would think it was everything wrong with Harry.  
  
 _I would rather have him scrabbling at me and sniffing my neck and trying to force the bond than pitying me. At least then I would know for sure what to feel about him._  
  
Harry opened his eyes a second later. He already knew, didn’t he? The situation with Malfoy was really no different than the situation with the Dursleys. There was the “love” that both of them said they would feel for Harry if he behaved a certain way. All Harry had to do for his aunt and uncle to love him—he had believed this once, anyway—was to get rid of his magic. “All.”  
  
And all Harry had to do for Malfoy to love him was give up his independence, his free will, his very sense of self.  
  
 _Never._ Dumbledore might have wittered on and on about how Harry’s greatest power was love, but Harry had learned to live without the kind of love the Dursleys offered. If it was conditional, if it would make him into a different person if he just  _tried,_ then he didn’t want it. And he never would.  
  
Someone knocked on his door. Harry tensed, turning his head. His neck hurt from how tight his muscles were. He laid his hand on his wand, although if it was Malfoy he wasn’t sure how effective it would be.  
  
“Mr. Potter?” That was Aloren’s voice, and he spoke so gently that it set Harry’s teeth on edge. “I haven’t come to plead for Mr. Malfoy. Just to talk to you.”  
  
Harry laughed harshly and leaned his head down, panting. If he broke away from the door, he wondered if Aloren would try to come through. These rooms weren’t private, after all. Not the way they probably would be if he was a  _true_ submissive.  
  
The thought of Malfoy holding the rooms’ privacy out as some kind of incentive for Harry to submit to him made Harry burn and boil all over again. He held his voice down to a level tone, though, because the kind of scream he wanted to make would burst Aloren’s eardrums. “You don’t have anything to talk to me about.”  
  
“I want you to know something more of how a submissive and dominant truly relate, when there is no damage to the bond and no longing to have a different kind of relationship.”  
  
Harry laughed harshly. “And that isn’t what I want, is it? No matter how much Malfoy tells me I should, I don’t have those instincts that he’s talking about.”  
  
“The submissive ones? No. But I think you may have misunderstood the role of the submissive in a bond. I don’t think that either Mr. Malfoy or his mother explained it to you adequately.” For a moment, Aloren’s voice dipped. Harry thought it was on Narcissa’s name. “If you understood, perhaps you wouldn’t resent it so much.”  
  
“I would resent it  _more_. Because that’s the role you want me to play, that you and Malfoy and his mum all want to force me into.” Harry paced slowly across the room, turning his head now and then to make sure the door was still locked. “And it’s the role I’m never going to play.”  
  
Aloren sounded surprised for the first time. “You never want to be loved, or give someone else the pleasure of taking care of you?”  
  
“What kind of pleasure would that be for  _me_? I don’t love Malfoy. I don’t care about bloody seeing him happy. Just alive.”  
  
Aloren was silent again for a moment. Then he asked, “Could I come in? If you could listen to me about what else you need to do besides serve your dominant—other things that submissives experience and feel and do—then you might understand better.”  
  
“Serving the dominant is the catch, isn’t it?” Harry shot another Locking Charm at the door, just to be sure. Of course, maybe Aloren’s wings or strength or something would let him come through the door, and then he would  _learn_ about some of the spells that Harry had seen the Aurors use in combat. “I’ll never do that.”  
  
“Even the terms of service may have been misunderstood.” Aloren seemed resigned to speaking through the door, which reluctantly impressed Harry. He was the first person Harry had met who was willing to have a conversation about this on Harry’s terms, even if he had asked for other things. “It doesn’t mean taking care of them or crawling at their feet like a slave.”  
  
“I don’t want to be a slave  _or_ a servant.”  
  
“This is hard to explain to someone who didn’t grow up hearing about it.” Aloren sounded a little wistful.  
  
“Imagine that I’m a child,” said Harry, and if there was laughter in the back of his voice, harsh and cackling laughter, well, he didn’t need to explain that to Aloren. “Tell me the way you would a child who comes to you for the first time and asks about submissives and dominants. Remember that I can ask questions a child wouldn’t ask, though.”  
  
“You’ve already asked several, I’m unlikely to forget,” Aloren murmured, but began. “Dominants are the ones who face outwards. Submissives are the ones who face inwards.”  
  
Harry tilted his head back. “Why do all these magical creatures like speaking in metaphors?” he asked the ceiling. “Explain to me what  _that_ one means. So far, it seems like the submissive mostly faces inwards because they’re crouched on the floor with their arse in the air all the time.”  
  
“Submissives are the ones who handle private matters.” If Aloren was upset that Harry was speaking disrespectfully of the supposedly sacred Veela bond, he didn’t show it, simply answering the question with a patience that actually startled Harry. “Dominants are the ones who handle public matters.”  
  
Harry shook his head. “That  _does_ sound like the division that Malfoy was explaining to me, and I’m afraid I’m not going to follow  _that_ one, either. I have an active political career.”  
  
“Most submissives don’t,” said Aloren, as if he assumed that a statement of fact was a demand for more information. “They find that they have enough to do keeping the home in order and being the heart of the house.”  
  
“My friend Hermione said something about that phrase,” said Harry. “It sounded like I would look through portraits’ eyes at people and control what the wards of the houses did or something. And no, thanks.” He shuddered. The thought of being responsible for Malfoy’s safety and what would happen to him if something got through the wards and wounded Malfoy was enough to give him nightmares.   
  
“It is more than that,” said Aloren. “They did not explain it to you?”  
  
“They only explained that I was supposed to be Malfoy’s servant and in love with him.”  
  
“Not that I do not wonder what went wrong with the bond to damage it so badly,” said Aloren, sounding brisk now, “but they do need to explain more of this to you. So. A submissive being the heart of the house means that the house revolves around him. The house-elves come to him for orders. He needs to be consulted about any guest who arrives and what the family will give to the guest. He needs to be the one who decorates the rooms and chooses the food for the meals and decides what should happen to the children when they cause trouble inside the house. If they cause trouble in public, then the dominant disciplines them.”  
  
“Life as a housewife,” said Harry, thinking of the chores he had done for Aunt Petunia and shuddering again. Telling house-elves to do them didn’t sound any more interesting than doing them himself.  
  
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Aloren. “Is it a Muggle term?”  
  
Harry sighed. “Where do the parts about the wards and the portraits’ eyes come into it?”  
  
“The submissive is also responsible for defense of the house, of course,” said Aloren. “He keeps the people around him safe and happy, and he roots out the causes of the hatred and unhappiness and depression they are suffering. He gives permission for certain spells to be cast in the house, and rules out others. He dictates whether children can be allowed to practice their magic on warded property that would hide their practice from the Ministry. He uses the portraits and the wards as part of the system of defense, and the wards are linked to him.”  
  
Harry paused. That was the only part that didn’t sound so bad, he thought. He would have liked to live somewhere with his friends and defend them and support them.  
  
But he wouldn’t have a choice about who to defend, would he? He would have to defend Malfoy or his mum or whoever was living in the houses at the time. And he would never get the chance to invite his friends over.  
  
“What if I’m not interested in that?” he asked. “Or what if I wanted to do some of that and not all of it? Or what if I wanted to do it but also have a political career?”  
  
“Being heart of the house involves one more duty.”  
  
Harry heard the slowness in Aloren’s voice, and smirked.  _I knew we were going to come to it eventually._ “Let me guess,” he told the ceiling. “That duty is serving the dominant.”  
  
“Well, yes,” said Aloren. “And most dominants don’t want their submissives venturing out into danger. Almost everything beyond the walls of a house is dangerous for the submissive. People might want to force them to grant them access to the house, so they can steal the family’s money or artifacts. They might try to kidnap their children, or use them to take revenge on the dominant’s family.”  
  
Harry shook his head, all the more confirmed now in what he had already suspected. “There’s no way for me to be  _me_ with a role like that,” he said. “It’s all about the dominant and his family. Even say that I didn’t hate Malfoy and I didn’t have a political career and I wanted to do some of this shit. It doesn’t leave a place for me. I’d be a thing. An object. A prized artifact. The ward on a house. Something valuable, but not for itself. What it can do.”  
  
“That’s not true.” Aloren sounded for the first time in a while as though he might try to break through the door, and Harry put another charm on it. “Dominants love their submissives. Of course they want them to have what they want.”  
  
“Just not an independent life, if that’s what they desire.”  
  
“I don’t know.” Already Aloren sounded wretched. “It’s not something that’s ever come up before.”  
  
Harry snorted. “Well, now it has. And I’m going to tell you the same thing I told Malfoy. I’ll do the compromises that will keep him alive. And me alive. And my political options alive. Nothing more than that. I’m not his fan or his friend any more than I’m his submissive.”  
  
“If you knew how much it hurts a dominant when his submissive doesn’t listen to him or pay attention to him--”  
  
“And it hurts  _me_ to be forced into this sort of life,” Harry interrupted. He almost wished he’d opened the door to Aloren so he could see the bastard’s face now and make him really  _understand_ what Harry was talking about. “I know Malfoy didn’t choose it.  _Neither did I._ I’m not going to give everything up, no matter what, so that he gets what I want and I get nothing.”  
  
“He would love you,” Aloren whispered. “I do truly believe that he has the capacity for that.”  
  
“But I don’t, according to your bond-reading spell.” The thought of that thing still made Harry want to flinch, but he thought he understood now. It didn’t mean he couldn’t love his friends or that what he’d felt for Ginny wasn't real. It only meant that he didn’t have the capacity to love Malfoy in a Veela bond. Which was what he’d been trying to tell him all along. “Compromise is about all he can ask for. I’m not giving anything else up.”  
  
“What happened to you, leaving you unable to love or submit?”  
  
“To love  _a Veela_ ,” said Harry sharply. He wasn’t about to let Aloren go around thinking he couldn’t feel love, not when he’d bloody well walked into the Forbidden Forest to make the sacrifice of his life for people he loved. “That’s not the same thing as anything else.”  
  
“What happened?”  
  
“There was this Dark Lord who wanted my head, you see.”  
  
“It must be more than that.” Aloren’s voice dipped again, and Harry pictured him leaning against the door, his claws out as if he would tear down the wood. It was probably the posture Malfoy would take if he was there. “Maybe it’s the sort of thing your mate can heal, if you tell him about it.”  
  
“War trauma doesn’t heal that easily, and you can’t bring back the dead.” And some of it, like the Horcrux, Harry would never tell anyone about. Knowing Malfoy, the git would probably want to make one just in case.  
  
“This trauma is older than the war.”  
  
“And I  _won’t discuss it._ ” Harry snarled in a way that he hadn’t done since he’d pinned Malfoy to the wall of the library with his magic. He’d begun to think they could live together, and then  _this_ happened. Knowing Malfoy, he wouldn’t leave it alone; he would insist that he had some sort of right to know everything that had ever happened to Harry.  
  
It was horrible, in a way, because Harry had hoped that he would be able to tell everything to somebody someday. To lay out in words what it was like to find out you were a Horcrux and someone had manipulated you most of your life.  
  
But he had told his friends, and Ron and Hermione were  _great_ friends. If he was never going to have a wife or lover he could be with, well, he still had more than a lot of people with Horcruxes in their heads might have.  
  
“Harry,” said Malfoy’s voice abruptly.  
  
Harry jerked his head back, wondering where Aloren had gone and why Malfoy had taken his place. “What are you doing, Malfoy?” he asked, “I was talking to Aloren about something.”  
  
“I know what he probably wanted to talk to you about.” Malfoy sounded as though he also resented the fact, but he went on before Harry could snap at him. “And I want you to know that what you talk about with him will remain--private. Between the two of you.”  
  
Harry blinked some more. But a private conversation with Aloren really didn’t matter to him very much. He wanted a different kind of promise. “You won’t ask me about it, either? About the damage to the bond or why we can’t bond?”  
  
There was a moment of silence so sharp that Harry could have used it as a weapon.  
  
“I  _want_ to ask,” said Malfoy finally, and there was a longing in his voice that was foreign to Harry. It sounded a little like the desire some of his fans had to ask him questions, but that had never been as yearning as this. It was more greedy. “But I won’t. If it’s that important to you to keep silent.”  
  
“Aloren seemed to think that we had to work it out and heal it somehow.” Harry couldn’t help himself, even if Malfoy had sincerely meant his promise. He wanted to push further, to push against the boundaries and make  _sure_ that Malfoy wasn’t going to break his word at a later date.  
  
“We have the time to work out a compromise and test it,” Malfoy said. “All our lives. There are things I want to change, but maybe we can find a way to change them without discussing the past. As much as I want to know. And you can tell me if you ever want to.”  
  
Harry relaxed a little. Yes, Malfoy was the same Malfoy. Those last words had been the most eager ones he’d uttered yet.  
  
But if Harry could trust him a little, and hold him to his promise about not prying into his past, then the sort of compromise he’d proposed might be tolerable.  
  
“I want your word that you won’t ask anything,” he said. “If I feel comfortable enough to say something to you, that’s one thing, but no asking.”  
  
Silence from the other side of the door.  
  
“Malfoy?” Harry leaned on it. “I can work with you and do what I need to without talking about things that don’t matter. You know it.”  
  
*  
  
Draco winced and closed his eyes. He did know it. But even though he had said he wouldn’t break into Harry’s silence without a reason, he  _wanted_ to break it. He wanted to ask, and he wanted Harry to freely answer.  
  
 _Freely._  
  
That, he would never win unless he left the choice of when and how to speak up to Harry. And although his Veela screamed at him inside his head about how it needed its mate, its submissive, ultimately Harry freely giving him what he wanted was the greater prize. It might happen someday.  
  
It was on the trust and hope of that someday that Draco nodded, took a deep breath, and murmured, “All right. No asking. No prying. As long as you  _do_ tell me if you feel like telling me.”  
  
Silence in turn, and Draco wondered if that wasn’t good enough and he should open his mouth to promise something else. But then the door opened, and Harry stood there, scanning him up and down as though he thought Aloren’s bond-sensing spell should have left a kind of visible residue on Draco.  
  
Draco gave Harry a tight smile. It was hard to remain calm when he thought of Aloren, who he’d summarily sent away, but he could do it for Harry’s sake. Harry was more important to him than any dominant could ever be, even if the dominant had been intent on stealing Harry, which Draco didn’t think was the case here.  
  
“All right,” Harry said, guarded, an answer and a question both at once.  
  
“All right,” Draco echoed back, and in a way it was. At least he had an answer now for why the bond wasn’t functioning , if not an answer in all the complete detail he wanted.  
  
Harry gave him a tentative smile, and that was enough to content Draco’s Veela for now. He nodded, and stood back to let Harry precede him down the stairs.  
  
Harry did pause with his hand on the railing and say, “I would appreciate it if your mother didn’t poke at me anymore about not respecting the bond and you enough. Bring problems to me if you have them. If there’s something you need to live.”  
  
Draco grunted. He hadn’t been pleased by his mother springing Aloren on them, either, even though he had managed to live with it. “You can count on that.”  
  
Harry shot him one more, far more dazzling, smile, and allowed Draco to touch his back with a wing as they walked down. Draco felt he couldn’t ask for anything more.  
  
 _Right now, anyway._


	13. Interventions and Interference

"I will go now, then," said Aloren, making a small bow and looking from one of their faces to the other, as though he assumed that they were making the decision separately. Draco wrapped a wing around Harry's shoulders and just waited, and Aloren nodded as though that had been an answer to the question. "If you cannot yet decide whether you want to hear more about submissives and dominants and the way that they answer the call of their bonds, I can't blame you."  
  
"I would be willing to hear more," said Harry. Draco tested the bond and found that one of the conduits was open enough, or Harry's emotion was powerful enough, to come to him in scattered fragments. Harry was calm right now. "But we do have to work out a compromise on our own. Greater understanding can come after that."  
  
"Are you willing to do this?" Aloren looked at Draco this time.  
  
Draco met his eyes and reminded himself that he was trying to help, and not challenging Draco's right to cradle or comfort or protect Harry, the way a hostile dominant would be. "I need to compromise," he said.  
  
Aloren seemed to understand the unspoken words, which involved there being no other mate for him, and grimaced a little. "There might be the option of breaking the bond," he said. "It is uncertain whether you would survive, but we could try it."  
  
"How many people have survived the breaking of a Veela bond?" Draco asked. He knew it couldn't be very many, or it was one of the first options his mother would have suggested once Harry began to show the signs of not being a typical submissive.  
  
"One or two," said Aloren. "It was never the same two from the same bond, though."  
  
Draco nodded. While the possibility existed, it was as he had thought: it was so low that it was essentially the same as a death sentence.  
  
"Yeah, I can't die," said Harry. "I have to  _live_."  
  
Draco paused once, his wing tightening a little despite himself. Harry gave him a quick neutral look, and Draco shook his head. He needed more, after the dazzling smile that Harry had given him on the stairs. And while he would keep his promise not to ask about Harry's past and what had damaged the bond that badly, at least as much as he could, he  _needed_ to ask about something else.  
  
"Can I talk to you now, Harry?" he asked, and made his voice as friendly and accommodating as he could. "We should start creating the grounds for that compromise."  
  
Harry nodded, although the look he cast at Draco was measuring, that of someone who knew that he was up to something. He moved towards the library, and Aloren cocked his head and gave Draco a glance up and down.  
  
"You know that you can't plot against him," he said. "That he won't take any sort of secret plans well."  
  
"I know that," Draco said coldly. Aloren wasn't a hostile dominant trying to take Draco's mate away, but he  _was_ annoying. "That would be why I'm talking to him now."  
  
"You don't have any idea what you're up against," Aloren whispered, and the expression on his face was almost tender. "I don't think this is a situation that any Veela have ever faced since bonding came into being."  
  
"All the better for me," said Draco, with an expression he knew his mother would probably dismiss as stubborn. But this was Draco's life, and his bond, and he was the only one who could decide what he would put up with.  
  
"If you say so," said Aloren, after a long moment when Draco thought he would offer more unwanted advice, and his head inclined in a smooth bob. "I will come back if you summon me, but only then."  
  
He left. Draco watched him go, and only really relaxed when the front door of the house shut and he could be sure that Aloren was out of his domain.  
  
Or his submissive's domain. But he supposed he could think of them as sharing the house, since Harry was so reluctant to take up his traditional role.  
  
He still waited a moment before he turned and went into the library, but that was to brace himself for the confrontation to come as much as anything else.  
  
*  
  
"I know that you said you wouldn't tell me about your past that led up to the damage to the bond, and I would try not to ask. But I wanted to ask about something else. What made you so absolutely committed to leading the peace effort?"  
  
"Admit it," Harry said, keeping his back turned as he examined the books on the shelves. There was nothing here that looked as if it would be useful to him, unlike some of the other libraries on the upper floors. There was only general magic theory, and a few books on wizarding history. He supposed this was the "respectable" library that the Malfoys could show to anyone who came in from the Ministry and wanted to see what they were reading. "You were about to say  _absurdly_ committed."  
  
"Maybe I was. So help me understand."  
  
Harry sighed and turned around. He thought it wouldn't do much harm. This was all documented in newspapers, for one thing. Malfoy could find out even if he didn't ask Harry, and Harry would rather that he ask him so he could control the flow of information.  
  
It was different from things like the Horcrux, which Harry was never going to admit to, and the Dursleys, which Harry would only admit to his friends. And maybe it would help Malfoy understand Harry's insistence on a political career.  
  
"I knew the war would continue, after it was supposedly over," he said quietly. "Some Death Eaters sent me owls swearing vengeance and saying they would attack Hogwarts if I ever went back there. And then I started hearing from Muggleborns who felt mistreated, and pure-bloods who did, and the Ministry told me about all the problems brewing under the surface."  
  
"The Muggleborns and the pure-bloods and the Ministry were writing  _to you_?"  
  
Harry frowned at Malfoy, not understanding the flat disbelief in his eyes and voice. On the other hand, maybe he should have anticipated it. Of course he would finally tell the truth and have Malfoy promptly disregard it. "Not the Ministry. I was there daily, testifying at the trials and talking about how I defeated Voldemort and whether I'd enter Auror training. But lots of letters from other people, yes."  
  
"Why, though?" Malfoy's wings arched up like bows and flexed, once. Harry stepped prudently aside in case he tried to fly across the room with Harry in the way. "They couldn't have found someone else who could have handled their problems? You've already done enough."  
  
Harry paused. "I agreed with that at first." Sometimes he still did. "But there's a saying, if you want something done, you give it to someone busy. They probably thought I'd be good at saving the world again because I'd already done it once."  
  
"They should still have found better people to carry the burden," Malfoy insisted. He snapped his wings down again when he noticed Harry watching them, but he sounded upset. "Older people."  
  
Harry snorted and folded his arms. "Admit it, you only care about that because I'm your mate. You wouldn't give a shit about what I was doing if I wasn't."  
  
Malfoy glared at him. Then he said, when he seemed to realize that Harry was waiting for an answer, "And you can blame me, with our history?"  
  
Harry paused, then shrugged. He supposed not. He wouldn't have cared what Malfoy was doing after the war as long as he didn't attack one of Harry's friends or do something that would make Harry have to testify at another trial.  
  
"Fine," said Malfoy, wrapping his wings around his body as if he was cold this time. "So they were writing to you. But I've seen you ignore people writing to you and about you before. What made you change your mind this time?"  
  
"I was so angry at everything, all the time," Harry said. "I needed something to take my mind off the war. And here were all these people telling me another war was going to come along soon, and I'd have to fight in it. I got angry at those people, finally. It took about a week after the war," he added, smiling. He could remember the night when he'd made the decision calmly now. "I decided that I was going to tell them all to fuck off, the ones who wanted me to fight and the ones who were threatening me, by dedicating myself to peace."  
  
Malfoy was still staring, and Harry shrugged again. "I told you once before that my reason was selfish. I'm not some paragon, no matter what the people writing to me wanted to think."  
  
"I didn't mean to say you were." Malfoy's voice was quiet. "But tell me the story of how you decided it. Was it one day, or did it take longer than that?"  
  
"I almost destroyed my room," Harry admitted. "I was so frustrated, because first I thought about starting a peace process and then I thought of the Ministry and how badly they were botching it. So I lashed out with my magic because I couldn't see any way to  _do_ it."  
  
"What happens when you lash out with your magic?"  
  
"I almost destroy things," Harry said, wondering if he happened to be mated to a deaf Veela, and maybe Veela developed deafness at a later age than other people.  
  
"No," said Malfoy, and his voice was almost eerie now in how flat and seemingly lifeless it was. "Tell me the  _story_. What did it look like? What spells did you use?"  
  
Harry peered at him again. It was such a strange thing to want to know. He thought Malfoy's goal was to get Harry to be submissive to him. How would knowing something about Harry's magic and how dangerous it was help him with that goal?  
  
But Harry decided that was Malfoy's business. And in a way, it would be a relief to describe this like he couldn't even to his friends. Ron would have listened, but Hermione wanted Harry to hold onto his temper, and wouldn't have been pleased to know about a time he lost it. And Harry wasn't going to ask Ron to keep secrets from Hermione.  
  
"I can't really tell you about spells. I was striking out with so much power that I couldn't even put it in words. It would land on a wall, and the wall would shudder and buckle." Harry tried to think of how to describe the small craters his magic had put in the walls, and finally came up with, "It looked like the place a meteor would have landed."  
  
He wondered if he'd have to explain the Muggle science term to Malfoy, but Malfoy said in what sounded like a breathless voice, "Go on."  
  
Harry nodded. "Anyway, I was making these colored flashes appear above me, and these whips that made things catch on fire where they landed. And this ball of white fire hovered above my hand. I could feel how hot it was, but somehow I knew it wouldn't burn me. I knew I could throw it at something and it would burn it whole, though. Leave not even ashes behind."  
  
"How can you hang onto your temper when there's such power waiting to be accessed?" Malfoy's eyes were huge.  
  
"Because it's only power," said Harry, a little confused. "It's not even the kind of power that can help me do what I need to do. Unless I want to scare everyone into behaving, and set myself up as dictator. Which I don't."  
  
Malfoy lowered his gaze to the floor. Harry waited for him to ask another question, but he didn't, so Harry added, "And besides, I don't always keep it under control. You saw that when I pinned you to the wall in the library." He grimaced. "I'm sorry for losing it like that."  
  
"You're sorry for pinning me, or sorry for losing your temper?" Malfoy's eyes were back on him.  
  
"Both?" Harry offered, unsure himself. He shook his head. He hadn't felt this uncertain in a while. At least he knew where he was with a schedule of meetings and peace talks and public appearances, and even with something a little silly like receiving an Order of Merlin. He knew what impression the public would take away from that, and it was a good one.  
  
Or would have been, if Malfoy hadn't ambushed him during the ceremony.  
  
He scowled a little at Malfoy, who was obviously thinking of something else. "Why is Granger always telling you to hold onto your temper?"  
  
"It's not just her. Kingsley does the same thing when I have a public appearance for the Ministry and losing my temper could ruin it. And that's the sort of thing that really  _could._ "  
  
"But they keep insisting that you hold onto your temper, and there are some people you would impress if you lost it. And your magic could make you a power in the world in another way." Malfoy leaned forwards. "What did Granger say when you told her that you almost destroyed your room?"  
  
 _And this is what happens when you start talking about this kind of thing to Malfoy,_ Harry scolded himself.  _It makes you disloyal to your best friends._  
  
"I haven't told her," he admitted, and then turned away when Malfoy's wings snapped up and a sound that was far too delighted broke from his throat. "And I don't want to talk about this anymore."  
  
"Please."  
  
Harry paused in the middle of pulling a random book off the shelf. That sound was too breathy and discontented. He turned around.  
  
Malfoy was on his knees with one wing extended to him as though he was balancing a platter on it. "You don't know how much this means to me, to hear about this, and know it's our secret alone, when you won't tell me about more of the past," he said, and bowed his head. "Please don't take this from me."  
  
"Merlin, Malfoy, get  _up_ ," Harry said, and crossed the room to grip his arms and pull him to his feet. "Don't--don't kneel to me. Please. Not ever. I hate that." He ran his fingers through his hair and patted Malfoy's shoulder awkwardly above the wing. "Fine, I won't stop talking about it. But there's not much more to say. Hermione wouldn't approve. That's why I didn't tell her."  
  
"I'm glad to know that you would tell me," said Malfoy, and smiled at him. "Even if it's because you don't care that much about what I would say. It says you trust me in a way you don't trust her."  
  
Harry sighed and buried his head in his hands. He had known this would come up sooner or later. Malfoy just  _had_ to insist that this happened because of distrusting his friends, or some other nonsense.  
  
"I don't want you to be in competition with each other, okay?" he asked the floor. "I don't want them feeling like I'm neglecting them for you, and I don't want you to feel like I'm talking to them about you behind your back."  
  
"Do they know all about the part of your past that you won't talk to me about?"  
  
"Not  _all_ of it," said Harry. He'd said that because he didn't want Malfoy coming up with the bright idea to question Ron and Hermione, but from the way that Malfoy brightened and preened a little, he was taking it yet another way. Harry sighed again. He didn't know how to handle this. He wanted to lose his temper and he couldn't. He wanted to tell Malfoy to shut  _up_  and get away from him, and he couldn't.  
  
And why did Malfoy care about knowing all those insignificant things about him, anyway? It didn't make sense.  
  
*  
  
Draco watched the expressions flicker across Harry's face, and smiled in what he hoped came across as a sympathetic way. From the scowl Harry gave him, and the torn emotions pulsing down the ragged bond, it didn't.  
  
But Draco wanted to be sympathetic. Harry had told him some private facts. He had admitted that he didn't tell his friends everything. He had wanted Draco to stand up and not kneel to him, which was an excellent sign that he meant what he said and didn't want to occupy the dominant role in Draco's place.  
  
What if Draco took most of what he said as true as well? That he didn't care that much about Draco, but also didn't want to hurt him, and he had a temper, and he didn't want to lose it, and his magic was really that strong?  
  
It changed some things. Draco could look on Harry with a kinder eye, and think about the bond a different way.  
  
"All right," he said. "Thank you for telling me what you did."  
  
Harry paused and turned to stare over his shoulder at Draco. He appeared stricken. Draco didn't know why. He meant what he'd said, and he gave a little bow and walked to the library door.  
  
"Where are you going?" Harry's voice floated after him.  
  
"I'm giving you some privacy," Draco said, and paused and looked back at him. "Wasn't that what you wanted?"  
  
Harry shrugged again, looking embarrassed. "I don't mean to chase you out of rooms in your own house, you know."  
  
"It's your house as much as mine," Draco said. "Not more," he continued hastily, when he saw Harry's scowl start forming. "Not because you're the submissive. But it's your home, too. You can invite other people over and read the books and put charms on your doors to lock them if you want."  
  
And he left, because Harry's face was a picture he didn't want to spoil.  
  
 _Nothing is going to be the same as I thought it was. But maybe,_ Draco thought, considering the shiver of pleasure that had run through him when Harry told him the truth and again when Harry pulled him back to his feet,  _it can be better._


	14. Daphne and Draco

Harry nodded to the fireplace and stood up. “I’ll be right over, Hermione. The strategy meeting is in the Leaky Cauldron, right?”  
  
“It is.” Hermione’s expression was resigned as she watched Harry gather up the books and parchments he’d need to bring with him. Harry didn’t think it was for the books and parchments themselves, but the table he picked them up from. “You’re really doing it?”  
  
“Of course I plan to work on showing the pure-bloods that a bunch of their cherished families come from Muggleborns,” Harry said, halting and staring at her. “Why else would I have spent all this time researching genealogies?”  
  
“Not that. You’re staying with Malfoy. You’re making this bond work, the way Ron says you have to.”  
  
Harry snorted a little. “How much of this is about me making the bond work, and how much of it this is the argument you want to win with Ron?”  
  
From the way Hermione flushed, he knew he had scored a hit, but she still faced him with glittering eyes and cheeks. “You know that I’d help you fight it. That you shouldn’t have to spend the rest of your days bound to him. And I would win.”  
  
“Win against what? Me? Him? The pure-bloods?” Harry shook his head. “I did get a few letters over the weekend congratulating me on the bond, you know. I think Malfoy is right that this’ll do a bit of good with some of the stodgy traditionalists. They think I’m more bound into their world now.”  
  
“You shouldn’t have to give up your freedom for the peace effort!” If Hermione had had a desk in front of her, Harry thought, she would have pounded a fist on it.  
  
Harry rolled his eyes, and he didn’t care that she could see him doing it. Something like that would have hurt Malfoy if he had seen Harry doing it, but his friendship with Hermione could survive such a minor challenge. “I already have. If you want to see it that way. I personally don’t, because I chose to make the sacrifice. No one forced me to.” He drew in his breath to ask another question about the meeting, but Hermione pushed on.   
  
“You shouldn’t have to give up your freedom for him, either,” Hermione whispered, and Harry knew they had come to the heart of the matter.  
  
Harry shrugged as much as he could without disturbing the books in his arms. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Hermione. Part of this is because Malfoy would die if I left him. I don’t want that to happen. Part of this is because it was easier than staging some massive rebellion that would probably  _also_ have left Malfoy dead.”  
  
“But how much of this is for you? Does the bond give you  _anything_ , or just another burden to deal with?”  
  
Harry smiled gently at her. “Malfoy’s not that horrible, you know. Not as horrible as I thought he would be. I assumed he would make me crawl at his feet, and I would have struck back at him for that.”  
  
“I’m glad there’s  _some_ kind of limit to your tolerance.”  
  
Harry looked at her, and thought of many things that he could say. But they would have been upsetting to him and to her, and he didn’t need an argument before the strategy meeting. “Anyway. Tell me if the Greengrasses are going to be there.”  
  
Hermione’s eyes widened as if he had asked her whether she still revered Dumbledore. “Of course they are! They’re an integral part of bringing together the pure-bloods who would listen to you about having Muggleborn heritage in the first place.”  
  
Harry shook his head marginally. “Then I need to make sure that Daphne doesn’t approach me.” He wondered if she would listen, though. He hadn’t had any clue about her feelings until she revealed them, but since then, she’d been fairly persistent.  
  
In fact, the only thing that had made her back off was…  
  
Harry nodded, his mind made up. “I’m going to ask Draco to come with me.”  
  
“You’re mad,” said Hermione, checking his face as if she would find a sign of fever there. “You are, aren’t you? The burden of carrying the whole peace process on your back has finally driven you mad, and you’re lashing out without any notion of a formed plan.”  
  
Harry squinted at her in irritation. “Look, Daphne is pure-blood and knows about all these rules and roles and rituals that I don’t, and she  _still_ somehow decided it was a brilliant idea to come up to me and piss Draco off. I don’t think she’ll stop because I’m alone at one meeting. And I don’t want to come home to questioning so intense that—”  
  
He cut himself off, because Hermione looked honestly stricken, the way she had when she remembered a meeting they almost didn’t attend last week. “What is it?”  
  
“You called Malfoy Manor home,” Hermione whispered, and raised one hand as if she could fend off Harry from coming any closer.  
  
“For fuck’s sake,” said Harry. “Not you,  _too_. I know that a bunch of people are watching my every move and judging it, and Malfoy’s mother is one of them. And the Greengrasses probably are now, and the people we’re meeting with  _definitely_ are. I thought I could count on you not to analyze my every little movement and tell me why it’s wrong, Hermione.”  
  
“I didn’t mean to do that,” said Hermione, looking chastened. “But I think it would be best if you didn’t bring Malfoy to this meeting, Harry.”  
  
“And  _I_ think it would be for the best if you did.”  
  
Harry jumped a little, even though he had heard the door open and Malfoy walk into the room behind him. Hermione really flinched, of course, seeing Malfoy unexpectedly drape his arms around Harry’s shoulders, followed a moment later by his wings. Harry arched his head out of that warm cocoon so he could see Hermione and go on speaking to her. “Like I said, Daphne won’t back off, and it has to be for political reasons. Maybe this will teach her to keep her mind on the job in front of her.”  
  
Hermione looked a little devastated. “I know that she only wants the best for you, Harry.”  
  
“Wanting to marry my mate or have the Boy-Who-Lived at her side isn’t what’s best for Harry,” Malfoy said.  
  
Harry knew that he and Hermione would get into it any second, so he jumped in. “She might believe that, Hermione. Maybe it would have been for the best before I knew about being Malfoy’s mate.” Malfoy tightened his hold on Harry, but said nothing. Harry smiled at him to reward him for his self-restraint, and went on, “But now, she could jeopardize a large part of the peace process for her own reasons. I won’t have it.”  
  
“Is all you think about the peace process?” Hermione asked, looking as if she pitied him.  
  
“Yes,” said Malfoy, and gave a quick, complaining huff to the back of Harry’s neck that made the hairs there stand up.  
  
Hermione gave Malfoy another unfriendly look, probably because she didn’t want to agree with him, and Harry rolled his eyes and gave up on being subtle. “You can disagree or disparage each other later. Right now, we have a meeting to get to.”  
  
“We do,” said Malfoy, and gave him a small pinch on the side while Hermione was still shuffling around and muttering what sounded like complaints to herself. “Tell me, would you have brought me with you if your friend hadn’t told you about Daphne?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Harry had to say. “But I’m the one who asked if they were going to be there, so your question is irrelevant.”  
  
Malfoy frowned as if he didn’t think it was, but Hermione asked him a question about precedent then, and Harry was glad to turn around and tell her what he had found when he looked up means of informing pure-blood families about their Squib and Muggleborn relatives. He could swear that dealing with everyone’s bloody families was less exhausting than this mate business.  
  
He wanted…he wanted a peaceful personal life, if he could get it, along with peace in the larger wizarding world.  
  
He just wasn’t sure if he could get that if he did both what Malfoy wanted and what he wanted.  
  
*  
  
Draco looked around the room with a faint sneer. It was a room on the first floor of the Leaky Cauldron, magically enhanced with wizardspace for the meeting. It had the typical dark, smoke-stained walls and sooty fireplace of the Leaky, though. Draco wondered morbidly for a moment if this was one reason that Harry didn’t seem to care much about all the beauty and space available to him at the Manor, because he had lived and worked in places like this for most of his life.  
  
 _What was his life in the Muggle world like?_  
  
Draco burned to know. Ever since Aloren had said that the wounds preventing the bond from taking were old, he had thought they had to come from Harry’s life before Hogwarts. It wasn’t as though either of them was that old in the first place.  
  
But for now, he knew he wouldn’t get an answer, so he settled for watching Harry speak to and greet the guests.  
  
And once the guests started arriving, they  _kept_ arriving. Draco could feel his eyebrows creeping up his face as he watched them. He knew that relatively few pure-blood families would welcome the revelations that Harry and Granger seemed likely to spring at this meeting.  
  
It made him wonder if some people were here for different, less idealistic reasons, and when he saw the Maundys—a family so fussy that they wouldn’t even send their children to a wizarding school, instead keeping them at home and educating them themselves—he was sure of it. He drifted towards Harry and touched his shoulder with a wing.  
  
Harry turned around from speaking with Weasley to blink at him. Weasley looked back and forth between them, as if he was as eager as Draco for a sign that they were bonded.  
  
 _What has my life come to, when my greatest ally is a_ Weasley?  
  
Draco didn’t ask the question aloud, because no one had a satisfactory answer. Instead, he nodded to Harry and murmured, “Who invited Tamara Maundy and her brood? You’ll have your meeting livened up, sure, but you can have peace without boredom.”  
  
Harry glanced around, and Draco thought for a second he would have to point the Maundys out. But then Harry saw them, and relaxed a little. “Oh, them. She owled me and said that the issues of blood politics and purity were important to her family, and they were interested in knowing about their inheritance and ancestors.”  
  
“I bet they bloody well are,” Draco muttered, his eyes on the tall woman who must be Tamara, surrounded by her four children. All of them had the iron-grey hair that was the mark of the Maundy line. They swept by Harry without a single glance, but stopped to speak to Granger, and Draco had to smile.  
  
“What is it, Malfoy? You look like you’re swallowing broken glass.”  
  
It was Weasley who spoke, and Draco nodded to him. There were certain things they both knew and inclinations they both shared, he thought—not because they wanted to share them, but because that was the sort of thing you had to know, if you were surviving in the pure-blood world of wizarding Britain. “You know the probable reason the Maundys are here, right?”  
  
Weasley hesitated, then shrugged. “They’re speaking to Hermione. They can’t be that bad.”  
  
Indeed, Draco had noticed that most of the pure-bloods in the room still ignored Granger. But Tamara was winning her over, that was obvious, with her overawing manner. Never mind that she didn’t smile and took care to keep a small but obvious amount of space between her and Granger.  
  
“They’re here because they  _do_ want to know about the Muggleborns or Squibs in their line,” said Draco, lowering his voice. There were certain things that one didn’t say all that loud around a family as dangerous as the Maundys. “So they can burn the books that mention them if they’re ancestors, and make sure that the people who know about them—or who are them, if there are any descendants still alive—die fairly soon. Of an untraceable tragic accident, of course. They all are. Always.”  
  
Harry turned around and stared at him, gravely. But at least he didn’t say that Draco was making it up, which was more grace than Draco had thought he might get. Instead, he nodded, and turned around and surveyed the Maundys with more interest.  
  
“Hermione looks charmed by them,” he observed.  
  
Draco held back his sneer with effort. “They’re working to be charming. It wouldn’t help them if everyone thought that they were snobbish. They can show people the good side of that much money and power when they want.”  
  
Harry looked distant. Draco took a close look at him, wondering if he had said something that made him doubt his peace process again, but bit his tongue on the impulse to apologize. If Harry really wanted this to work, then he would have to take the truth into account.  
  
“I’ll remember that,” said Harry, and nodded to Draco. “Thanks, Malfoy.”  
  
Draco couldn’t help the way he stretched his wings or the croon that warbled out of his throat. Harry didn’t flinch at that, just blinked, and Weasley’s face was doing an odd thing where he looked as if he wanted at the same time to support their bond and to be elsewhere while they were enacting it.  
  
“Harry. I have something to say to you.”  
  
Draco hissed and turned around. Daphne was standing in front of them, her eyes sliding away from Draco as if he didn’t exist. She focused her gaze on Harry, and it was obvious that she wasn’t going to give up any time soon.  
  
“Then say it,” said Harry.  
  
For a moment, Draco thought he could give thanks for Harry’s absolute ice-smooth demeanor. He wasn’t giving anything away to Draco and Draco  _hated_ that, but on the other hand, he could outface his “suitors” without giving them any encouragement, either.  
  
“I want to speak to you alone,” said Daphne, and her hands trembled a little before she put them behind her back and bowed her head. “I need to apologize for my previous behavior.”  
  
Draco started to lift his wings and speak. Harry would be fooled by this because he needed the Greengrasses for his peace process, and—  
  
But Harry only said, “I don’t see any reason that you can’t offer an apology in front of other people. I’m sure I can take it, and so can they.”  
  
Daphne lifted her head and locked her eyes with Harry’s. Draco felt a moment of breathless hatred for her, and didn’t know whether the emotion would be as strong with anyone who wanted to claim Harry, or if it was especially strong here because Daphne had got close to Harry by pretending to be a purely political ally.  
  
 _How dare you exploit the thing that matters most to him, you stupid, stupid…_  
  
But Draco choked back his natural reaction, though in most contexts the pure-bloods would have expected it and even encouraged it from him. He reminded himself that in this case, his mate was capable of defending himself, and he held back, if barely, hovering on the edge.  
  
 _He shouldn’t_ have  _to defend himself. He deserves someone who will follow him around and cherish his every word and—_  
  
“You’re not sorry, are you?”  
  
Harry’s voice was so weary. Draco blinked and looked at him, breaking his intense if one-sided staring contest with Daphne. That wasn’t the emotion he had expected to hear.  
  
“I don’t know what you mean.” Daphne tilted her head and let her blond hair slide down her neck. Draco, who knew exactly how she was displaying herself to advantage because she used to do it in the Slytherin common room, nearly snarled himself to death.  
  
Harry didn’t react to the sound. “You would have apologized,” he said. “Or given me a better reason for not wanting to speak in public. Even saying that it was embarrassing would have done.”   
  
Daphne’s lips parted a little. Draco hoped, viciously, that she was blaming herself for not having thought of that tactic.   
  
“But instead, you just stood there and waited for me to give in.” Harry shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. You’re like everyone else who has some kind of desire for me that uses me. No different than the rest. No worse.” He paused as if he was gathering his breath. “No better.”  
  
Draco stood silent, staring at Harry’s back. He could hear Daphne spluttering a denial, but he was no longer interested in her. He only cared about Harry.  
  
 _He doesn’t want to be wanted?_  
  
 _Maybe he doesn’t, when the people who want him to do one thing are just as likely to turn their backs on him next time. Maybe he isn’t used to being wanted for who he is, instead of what he can do._  
  
“I never meant,” said Daphne.  
  
“I know you didn’t,” said Harry, which almost made Draco snarl again. “But that’s what happened. Excuse me.” He brushed past her without touching and without a backward glance, and walked to the table.  
  
Draco followed, both because he wanted to flap his wings and crow at Daphne’s dismissal and moving gave him something else to focus on, and because he could more easily lift his wings to shade Harry. Several people in the room had paid attention, after all, to their little scene.  
  
One of them was Tamara Maundy.  
  
 _I won’t let you hurt him. I won’t._


	15. Maundys and Misery

“Mr. Potter. Thank you for inviting us.”  
  
Harry gave Tamara Maundy a reserved smile as he shook her hand. “Thank you for responding. It’s not everyone who would.”  
  
“People can be fools,” said Maundy, casually swinging off the cloak she wore and hanging it over the back of her chair. It was the exact color of the iron-grey hair that swayed next to her shoulders, Harry noticed. Maundy sat with the same grace and continued watching Harry. “They need to understand where the next wave of change comes from.”  
  
Three months ago—or maybe three minutes ago, without Malfoy’s warning—Harry wouldn’t have noticed that she hadn’t said she would go along with that wave of change. Now, Harry gave her the polite smile and nodded to Malfoy as he came up alongside Harry. “I don’t know if you know my Veela mate, Draco Malfoy.”  
  
Maundy extended one hand. Malfoy didn’t hesitate in clasping it. It was probably some kind of insult if he did, Harry decided, and held back a groan.  _Pure-blood politics._  
  
“I congratulate you. To capture a Veela is quite the coup.”  
  
Malfoy straightened for a moment with his wings opening wide, and Harry shrugged. “I think you could say that fate captured both of us. It was a surprise, certainly.”  
  
Malfoy nodded and folded his wings to his back again. Maundy glanced between the two of them with slight blinks as the other wizards who had accompanied her—her children, Harry was sure—settled themselves around her. “Oh, really? I had thought the Veela knew before the mate, and that was why he sought you at the Order of Merlin ceremony.”  
  
“One does know,” said Malfoy, with a tone that made it sound as if he had a stuffed nose. “But the timing of the knowledge doesn’t preclude that knowledge from being a surprise.”  
  
There came a moment when Harry thought they were being judged. Then Maundy gave them a smile like the heart of winter. “Yes. Quite so.”  
  
Malfoy bowed to her, all precise and correct, Harry supposed, and then put a hand in the middle of Harry’s back. “Nice to meet you, Madam Maundy. If you’ll come with me, Harry, we should take our seats. The meeting can’t start until then.”  
  
They moved off. Harry arched himself a little forwards so that he didn’t feel as if Malfoy was towing him along like a prize cow on the end of a line, and murmured, “What do you think?”  
  
The sound of his voice was covered by the sound of coughing and shuffling feet as people took their seats, luckily. Also luckily, Malfoy didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I think she’s dangerous. But I did tell you that. If she wants to preserve a polite façade for now, it could mean that she thinks you’re dangerous, too. Or it could mean that she’s hoping you’ll underestimate her and let her strike.”  
  
Hermione was waiting at the head, next to a chair withdrawn a little from the table. Harry nodded his thanks, and Malfoy came to a stop, his wings arching over them like willow branches. Harry sighed and glanced at him. “What is it?”  
  
“There’s no chair for me.”  
  
“Of course there is…” Harry trailed off when he realized what Malfoy meant. Yes, there were enough seats in the room, but Malfoy’s was a long way down the table. Ron and Hermione had the chairs on either side of him.  
  
“How could anyone have overlooked such common etiquette?” Tamara Maundy asked, raising her voice from her place. “Nicholas, stand up and surrender your chair to Mr. Malfoy immediately. It will move to the head of the table on my command.” She held a sparking wand in her fingers. Harry had never seen the color of pink light that illuminated the end before, and instinctively, he disliked it.  
  
As well as any other move that Maundy made, really. Maybe he was relying too much on Draco’s advice, but the sense of leashed danger around Maundy  _was_ palpable.  
  
“No need to put yourself to inconvenience, Madam Maundy,” he said, and smiled at her. She paused as though she wasn’t used to having people contradict her, and her son, rising from his chair, froze in place like a rabbit. Harry continued smoothly. “But I do appreciate the way that you sprang immediately to service. So sweet.” He nodded to Ron. “Change chairs with Draco, please.”  
  
Ron stared at him for only a second before he smiled and nodded. Harry was relieved that Ron wouldn’t make a fuss about it. Then again, the way that Ron seemed to acknowledge the bond between him and Malfoy more than Hermione did was one reason he had chosen Ron to move. Hermione would have made a fuss, and that was what they  _didn’t_ need right now.  
  
Malfoy only blinked at him a time or two as Ron shifted down the table, and the Maundys settled back. But he jumped into life when Harry would have taken his chair. He drew it further back for Harry—in fact, to the perfect distance where Harry could step up to the table without feeling like he was squeezing in.  
  
Harry stared at him. Malfoy tilted his head down and muttered, “Don’t make a big deal of it. The Maundys are watching.”  
  
Harry relaxed. Yes, it was true that he could hardly use a Veela bond for political capital and then go back on it in public.  
  
Malfoy pushed the chair in for Harry as well, and slid one hand along his arm in a caressing gesture. For a moment, the shadow of his wings moved over Harry like a blessing.  
  
Harry sighed. In some ways, what Malfoy was offering sounded nice. Someone who would care for his well-being and pull out chairs for him and give him advice about political complications was someone he could use in his life.  
  
But utter submission was the price, and it wasn’t one Harry could pay. If Malfoy had been willing to accept something else, something that took a while to build and needed time for the affection and didn’t depend on this notion of  _service_ to the dominant…  
  
But he wasn’t. Maybe it wasn’t even possible for a dominant Veela, someone who had grown up with the instincts and the expectations, to want something else. Malfoy would probably sour on Harry and the bond as soon as he realized that there was no way Harry was ever going to give in to him.  
  
Harry sighed, touched Malfoy’s hand and nodded in thanks, and then turned to the meeting.  
  
*  
  
Draco kept his eyes away from Harry as much as he could. For one thing, he didn’t want to disconcert Harry by staring, which he knew he would do too much of if he didn’t watch out.  
  
For another, the political dynamics of the table were honestly fascinating. If his father had asked him, as a mental exercise, to consider the makeup of a group like this, Draco would have guessed Harry’s involvement at once, and the Weasleys’.  
  
Everyone else was a surprise.  
  
Daphne sat with her head turned away from them now, and her mother frowned. Draco wondered whether their coming here, and to Harry’s other gatherings, was prompted by a belief in what Harry talked about at all, or only the desire to have Harry stand beside Daphne as a political tool.  
  
 _You can’t have him!_  
  
He’d seen Harry reject Daphne, though, and that helped a lot with Draco’s instinctive urge to scream and cling to Harry himself. He managed to relax his locked muscles, and continue on with his study.  
  
Maundy and her children listened in utter silence to the recitation of names and places and people and families that Harry chose to start off with. Utter stillness, too. Draco found them all the more frightening for it. They had their own version of truth, and it didn’t depend on preserving an illusion that they had no connection with Muggles, not if it turned out to  _be_ an illusion. They would simply destroy the truth, bury anyone who knew about it, and continue on their way.  
  
That wasn’t true of other people at the table, of course. Long before Harry had reached the end of his list of families who had Muggle heritage, others were starting to splutter and stand up.  
  
“See  _here_ ,” said Alexander Carnavon. He had a thick moustache that was almost more impressive than the black beard he wore tucked into his waist, or the thick wooden staff he carried around. He aimed the end of the staff at Harry now. “You aren’t going to tell me that my wife’s grandmother was a Squib! That makes no sense! Why, no proper wizard would have married her!”  
  
“Eris Yaxley came with all the wealth that the Yaxley family had at the time,” said Harry, watching Carnavon narrowly. He didn’t have his hand on the wand beneath the table, which Draco couldn’t help thinking was a mistake. “She was her parents’ only child. If it hadn’t been for a few of your wife’s aunts and uncles agreeing to take the Yaxley name so that their line could continue, there would be none of them around today.”  
  
“That’s  _impossible_ ,” said Carnavon, and this time put down the staff and wagged a finger. Draco hid a snicker. He was mental if he thought that would work better to threaten Harry. “And anyway, a Squib’s no Muggle!”  
  
“Her family had ties to the Muggle business world, in an attempt to secure a sort of fortune for her if it turned out they couldn’t legally leave her theirs,” Harry said, and his voice was gentle and blank and intelligent. They would be fools if they discounted the intelligence, Draco thought. Harry turned over the page and scanned it for a moment, although Draco had the odd feeling—odd because of the complete trust in Harry that it implied—that he knew all about Eris Yaxley already. “Yes, here it is. They encouraged her to associate with Muggles, and did it themselves. They wanted her to marry a Muggle if they couldn’t find a wizard who would accept her.”  
  
“Even  _that’s_ different than having Muggle ancestors!”  
  
“Oh, I can move on from the Yaxleys, if you like,” said Harry, and again Draco hid a crowing chuckle. Yes, they really should pay more attention to what they were saying to Harry. Harry picked up another piece of paper and read down the list. “Yes, here we are. Henrietta Carnavon—well, she became Carnavon after she married your grandfather—but she was Henrietta James before that, and a Muggleborn. That means Muggle great-grandparents for you.” He looked up with the bland little smile that, like the bland voice, Draco was learning he could wield to devastating effect. “I think that’s the right degree of ancestry? Forgive me, I’m a half-blood, and uneducated in such things.”  
  
Carnavon gave a wordless roar of fury, and he would have left his seat and stalked around the table, Draco thought, if his wife hadn’t caught his sleeve and leaned in to whisper urgently to him. No doubting who had got the brains in  _that_ family.  
  
Carnavon sat back in his chair, and he was shaking his head, but his red color remained at a dangerous level. “You—you take that back. You can’t go around spouting those lies.”  
  
“If they were lies, I couldn’t have made them up,” Harry said. “I don’t know that much about pure-blood genealogy, and until recently, I never bothered to learn. It’s the truth. You had Muggle great-grandparents.”  
  
“What is the point of this?” asked Lucinda Kelley, one of the witches that Draco was surprised hadn’t said more before this point. The Kelley family had always been made up of half-bloods, and no one would let them forget it, but for just that reason, they were always trying to prove themselves as pure as the Blacks in custom and the way they acted.  
  
“It’s to prove that we’re not split into separate divisions.” Harry locked his hands on either side of the table, and his eyes swept them up and down. “We’re not Muggleborn this, half-blood that, and pure-blood without a ‘taint’ of Muggle ancestry over here. The lies we’ve been telling ourselves aren’t true.”  
  
“And why would that matter, even if it’s so?” Tamara Maundy this time, and Draco kept his gaze away from her. He was afraid that he would bristle if he looked at her, and they couldn’t really afford to look defensive right now.  
  
“Because we’re a small world,” Harry said, and his face was aglow with passion. Draco bit his lip, hard. If Harry never looked like that for him, at least Draco could say that he’d seen the look on his face. “We can’t afford to charge around blaming each other and  _having bloody civil wars._ ” Draco jumped a little at the abrupt change of tone, but most of the other people around the room looked enthralled—if unwillingly. “We should come together and accept that we’re bound and can’t kill each other or go into exile. We have to put up with each other.”  
  
“What an inspiring vision you offer,” said Maundy.  
  
Harry swung on her. “And what did Voldemort’s vision offer? What has it gained us? Nothing but dead wizards. Most of them pure-bloods, you realize.”  
  
“I would not have said his vision was the substitute,” said Maundy, and Draco narrowed his eyes. Instead of looking upset about Harry contradicting her, she had a faint smile on her mouth that worried him. “I would have said that the ancient ways were the substitutes, when wizards lived in their own enclaves separate from Muggles.”  
  
Harry rolled his eyes.  
  
 _Rolled his eyes._ Draco stared at him. He had thought that Harry was trying to preserve a detached, bland façade that his enemies would find it hard to put cracks in, and now he had just done  _that_ to a witch among the most dangerous in Britain.  
  
Draco found himself reaching instinctively for the conduit that connected him and Harry, and dug his fingernails into his arm when he realized that he could feel nothing through it right now. Whoever, whatever, had damaged the bond, he hated them more than he had since Aloren revealed the ragged nature of the bond’s extent.  
  
“I’m not  _actually_ suggesting that we drop the protections we have up against Muggles and become friendly with everyone who might fear our magic,” said Harry. “I’m suggesting that we stop debating the exact number of magical ancestors that someone has—if we count back far enough, there’ll be a Muggle ancestor for everyone here—and concentrate on healing the wounds that plague our world.”  
  
“There are some people for whom honor is more important than life,” said Maundy.   
  
She wasn’t saying she was one of them. Draco tensed up. Harry would fall into the trap, and then he would—  
  
“Agreed,” said Harry. “And for me, peace is more important than my life.” He drew his fringe back and showed the scar on his forehead. Draco saw more than one person in the room flinch, Carnavon among them, although not Maundy. “I’ve died once already, you know. I know exactly what my life is worth.”  
  
Maundy’s face went still and cool. Draco half-twitched his wings, thinking she might have her hand on her wand under the table, ready to soar up and defend Harry if he had to. If he could carry Harry all the way down the Manor stairs to the fireplace, he thought he could bear him up to the ceiling of this room before any spells could strike him.  
  
“You are, it is true,” said Maundy, “the only one in this room who can make that claim.”  
  
Harry nodded. Draco shut his wings again, but he was wary. For all he knew, Maundy was about to lure Harry into another political trap since her last one hadn’t worked the way she wanted it to.  
  
“But I wonder,” said Maundy, “if you would be willing to come to a meeting of  _my_ allies, the way I was willing to come to a meeting of yours?” She looked around the room and seemed to separate everyone in it from herself, although Draco knew plenty of people there were closer to Maundy in beliefs than they were to Harry.   
  
“It would depend on where the meeting was, and who would be there, and what oaths you’re willing to swear as to my safety,” said Harry. “I don’t meet with former Death Eaters without oaths.”  
  
Draco winced a little. Without looking away from Maundy or changing expression or appearing to notice at all, Harry reached out beneath the table and laid a hand on Draco’s, squeezing tight.  
  
 _He doesn’t consider me in the same category as those people._  
  
It should have been obvious, or Harry would have required an Unbreakable Vow before moving into Malfoy Manor. But Draco still felt something tight and coiled at the bottom of his stomach ease up.  
  
“There are no former Death Eaters among my people,” said Maundy, a faint smile on her face now. That smile scared Draco. “Only those who want to live the way I mentioned, holding to the old traditions.”  
  
Harry considered her in utter silence and stillness. Then he said, “Your people or your allies?”  
  
 _Oh, well done, Harry._ That wasn’t a catch Draco had made himself, and he started breathing a little more easily. Harry might be able to handle himself without trouble when Draco wasn’t around, after all.  
  
“My allies,” said Maundy. The smile was gone. “I will owl you with the appropriate information.” She stood and moved towards the Floo, her children following her, one with the cloak she had shed earlier.  
  
Draco watched her as he went. So he saw her wand hand move to the side, in a pattern that looked oddly like she was tracing a crescent moon on the air.  
  
And he felt and saw and heard and  _felt_ the moment when Harry began to convulse in silent pain.


	16. Desires and Devices

Harry could feel the pain curling through him, and accelerating as it spread down his limbs. All the while, there was a voice hissing in his ears and his blood and even in his eyes, it seemed like, a voice that was a cold, dead version of the tone the Maundy woman had used to speak to him.  
  
 _Agree to come with me. Obey me. Give this up. Burn the evidence._  
  
It was just her bad luck, Harry thought with the part of him that was still himself, hanging back and watching the conflagration take place, that she’d got someone who had suffered both the Imperius Curse  _and_ the Cruciatus Curse.  
  
He couldn’t help shaking from the effects of the Pain Geis, but he managed to keep from crying out. He forced it back, bore down on it with his will, the way he had when he was fighting Voldemort’s Imperius Curse in the graveyard. And while Tamara Maundy was evil and dangerous in her own way, she was no Voldemort.  
  
Malfoy was draped in feathers beside him, his wings hunching and his nose pointed long and thin. Harry leaned against him, hoping that Veela protective instincts would make Malfoy want to stay with him. Harry wanted to tell him that it was okay, that Maundy’s spell wouldn’t work the way she wanted it to or even make Harry suffer the way she wanted him to, but he couldn’t fight the spell off  _and_ say that at the same time. He settled for grabbing Malfoy’s hand and squeezing as hard as he could.  
  
Malfoy snatched him up and held him close. Harry shut his eyes. To his surprise, the warmth of Malfoy’s arms, and then his wings, around Harry gave him a background to concentrate on, a floating cushion of heat on which he could balance as he crushed the pain and the command that Maundy had tried to inflict him with.  
  
He crushed them, and the pain in his blood spluttered and died. Harry lifted his head and opened his eyes.  
  
At first, all he saw were white feathers. Harry lifted a hand and pushed with gentle firmness on the wings in front of him, and they opened out and drooped off to the sides. Malfoy huffed a little, as though he hadn’t told his wings to do that and wondered how Harry had learned to command them.  
  
Maundy looked at him with a white face. There was no expression of surprise on it, but more important to Harry, there wasn’t one of triumph either. He shook his head, not turning away from her.  
  
“You should have known better than to do that,” he said. “Didn’t the stories tell you that I can resist the Imperius Curse?”  
  
Shouting broke out at that, with Ron demanding, “She tried to  _Imperius_ you?” and Hermione calling for order and several of the other prominent pure-bloods at the table trying to take control of the situation because that was what they’d always done and they could probably see some political advantage in it.  
  
Throughout it, Harry looked at Maundy, and Maundy looked at him, and he was sure there was greater danger for him than ever in the grey-knuckled grip she had on her wand.  
  
Malfoy tilted his head back and screeched. It was an effective sound, Harry supposed, since it made everyone else jump and wince and cover their ears. He only heard it like the chime of a great clock, unexpected but not painful.  
  
“It wasn’t the Imperius Curse,” he said, when he could be sure that other people would listen. “It was the Pain Geis. She wanted me to obey her and do as she said, and in particular to get rid of the evidence of Muggle ancestors in the Maundy line. The spell was to cause me pain if I didn’t.” He stepped forwards, and maybe because of the assured way in which he moved, Malfoy lifted his wings and dropped his arms and let Harry do it. “You ought to have known better. I’ve resisted the Imperius Curse, and I’ve been through worse pain than that.”  
  
Maundy just looked at him.   
  
Ron was the one who drew Harry’s attention away from her, by leaning forwards and clasping Harry’s arm. He seemed to want to feel that the bone was unshattered, and he shook Harry’s arm back and forth a few times. Malfoy uttered a low hiss, but calmed down when Harry reached back and stroked one of his wings.  
  
“What’s the Pain Geis?” Ron whispered, but the room was silent enough that everyone heard him. Harry was a little surprised the shouting hadn’t already started up again, but he’d take it.  
  
“It’s a spell that forces the victim to suffer until they do what the caster wants,” said Harry, and he looked back at Maundy again. She seemed in no hurry to leave. He wondered if she was that confident in her own magical power. “They know that they’re under the spell and they can resist it, unlike the Imperius Curse, but they also suffer so much that most of them don’t. And most of them don’t talk about it, either.”  
  
“How did you know what it was?” Malfoy’s voice might have been snowfall. “It’s not a very common spell to use as punishment on someone, anymore.”  
  
Harry managed to smile. He hoped it was a smile, at least. Ron was giving him a concerned look again. “Someone tried to cast it on me right after the war.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
Harry shook his head. He was too alert to Malfoy’s moods not to know how much danger that little whisper held. “It doesn’t matter. The Ministry found them, and they agreed not to do it anymore, on penalty of going to Azkaban.” He faced Maundy again.  
  
Malfoy nuzzled the back of his neck. “You  _will_ tell me who.”  
  
“Later,” said Harry. “Not now.” And Malfoy seemed to understand what he meant, because he nodded and looked over Harry’s shoulder at Maundy himself.  
  
“That was stupid of you, to cast such a spell on a Veela’s mate,” said Malfoy casually. Harry once again touched his wing, and Malfoy bowed his head in what Harry understood as another nod, although he didn’t think anyone else did. “Why did you do that?”  
  
Maundy waited until everyone was looking at her; even the red-faced Carnavon had calmed down and seemed to want an answer. “I despise Muggles,” she said, in a clear voice like a ringing bell. “I despise the people who would force me to associate with them. I despise Muggleborns.” She looked at Hermione. Harry wondered how she could have hidden the loathing that carved deep lines in her face, but clearly she had managed. “I will have  _none_ of this nonsense that says we should associate with each other, or be friends, or  _marry_ into them.”  
  
Her children drew close around her at the last word. Harry wondered if that was just because Hermione had found a few books and scrolls and records that indicated other members of the Maundy family had slept with Muggles, or because of something else.  
  
“No one’s saying you have to,” Hermione began. “We’re just saying that it’s silly to say Muggleborns are lesser creatures because—”  
  
“They are,” said Maundy. “They utterly are.” She turned to Harry. “It would have been simpler if you would have let me command you into leaving me alone. I do not care what other families do, as long as the move to permit Muggles into our world does not grow too big.”  
  
“I was never going to let that happen,” said Harry. “You know I want peace, and that means some acceptance.”  
  
“There is not going to be that,” said Maundy. “And the Pain Geis was the lesser price. I came here today as my own representative.” She raised her hand, and something small and dark red rose buzzing from her palm.  
  
Malfoy screeched and shielded Harry with his wings again. Staring up at the red thing, Harry thought it looked like a dragon, made of glass or some other transparent material. Its wings clattered fast enough that it had to be artificial, not real.  
  
The buzzing thing looked at him, and then dived down at him.  
  
Harry reached for his wand, but Malfoy had already  _blurred_ off the ground, straight at the thing. Harry blinked, and saw a white shape hit a red one. For a moment, the red shape tilted off-center, and Harry thought he saw a burst of blood. But it was bright scarlet glass, ringing down around Harry in shards. He raised an Impervious Charm to avoid it, and grabbed Hermione, who was staring with her mouth open and hadn’t cast her own charm. Ron had already prudently ducked beneath Harry’s.  
  
Malfoy gave a flutter of his wings and settled back on the ground. For a second, Harry thought he’d been injured, and started forwards, but then he realized Malfoy was holding a single piece of glass. It looked as though he’d punched it.   
  
“I ask you again,” Malfoy said, and his voice had become a growing buzz, so he sounded like a swarm of bees. “Why would you attack a Veela’s mate when you had to know the price?”  
  
Maundy might have looked a little paler, but Harry had to admit, it was hard to see against her naturally paler coloration. She managed to laugh and shake her head, and hold out one hand as though she was cupping another invisible dragon in it.  
  
“Everyone knows that the bond you have isn’t strong,” she said. “How can it be, when you’ve been enemies since you were children and the first thing Mr. Potter did was reject you in the middle of the Ministry?”  
  
Harry stepped out from behind the Impervious Charm this time. Malfoy was standing as though Maundy had caught him with a Stoneskin Spell of her own, and Harry knew they had to respond, or make it seem as if Maundy had won.  
  
“Your spies haven’t told you the latest gossip,” he said. “I wonder if you can still trust them? It would be amusing if you can’t.”  
  
Maundy’s neck jerked a little. Harry smiled. He had practiced and practiced that tone, talking with other people and by himself, until it was perfect. They might hate him and think he was a blood traitor and a Muggle-lover—or someone who was way too forgiving of pure-bloods, if they were Muggleborn—but they had to pay attention when he talked like that.  
  
Maundy waited, and Harry waited. Maundy didn’t have as much patience as he did, though.  _She_ had probably never waited on someone to give her food in her life. “What gossip?” she asked, and it was a hiss.  
  
 _Not the kind I want to understand with Parseltongue_. “I’ve moved into Malfoy Manor,” Harry said, raising his head and looking at her through half-closed eyes. “I’ve decided to give this bond a go. It might be harder than I thought, but at least I’m not running the other way. Malfoy needs me, and I’d like to give him a chance.”  
  
Maundy stood as if turned to steel. Malfoy edged slowly backwards, as though thinking Harry would run any second, and leaned a wing against his shoulder. Harry tilted his head so that his cheek rested on the feathers, and he closed his eyes. He didn’t need to look at Maundy to know that she wouldn’t try anything else.  
  
There was the rush of fire, and when Harry opened his eyes again, Maundy and her brood were gone.  
  
Harry smiled.  
  
*  
  
“We have to get someone from Diagon Alley or the Ministry to take a look at this glass and see what that dragon was made of…”  
  
Granger had taken possession of the shard of glass Draco had saved from the dragon and was clucking and talking over it. Sometimes Harry answered her. But Draco felt distant from them, as though he was underwater.  
  
He didn’t know what to feel about Harry’s declarations. He knew that they had most likely only happened in the first place because Harry wanted the political advantage of the bond, and none of the political disadvantages. He wanted to look strong in front of Maundy and her ilk, and not weak.  
  
But Harry had made him a promise to tell him a secret later. He had told Maundy that her information was outdated. He had done  _something_ to show that he accepted the bond, which was more than Draco had ever thought he would get from him.  
  
“Malfoy? Are you all right?”  
  
It was Weasley’s voice, strangely enough. Draco turned towards him. Weasley was standing with his body angled towards Granger, but his attention was all on Draco.  
  
“Yes,” said Draco, and coughed. His voice hadn’t come out quite right enough to convince someone  _else_  that he was okay. “I don’t have a settled bond yet, and Maundy attacked my mate. There’s a limit to how comfortable I can feel.”  
  
Weasley considered him so closely that Draco shifted his wings. Then Weasley whispered, “Do you want me to talk to Harry?”  
  
“I think he knows Maundy is dangerous now and he can’t invite every pure-blood who seems interested to these meetings,” said Draco, and then caught Weasley’s eye and shook his head. “No. Not about the bond. Granger investigated and told him some things about the heart of the house, and that irritated him enough to fling me against a wall. You have to leave us to work this out.”  
  
 _And isn’t that a surreal thing to say to a Weasley._ But perhaps Draco should have considered his life surreal since the day he’d found out Harry Potter was a mate.  
  
“You didn’t talk to him about the heart of the house?”  
  
Draco flushed a little. “Well, I wanted him to show  _interest_ in the bond, and ask, and he didn’t. And I thought he must have known something.”  
  
“Harry was raised outside the wizarding world, Malfoy. He doesn’t know.”  
  
“So everyone keeps telling me.” Draco glanced again at Harry, who was performing some sort of detection spell on the piece of red glass now. “And I realize that he doesn’t have any idea of a Veela bond being an honor. But it would help me if he would ask, and show that he does care about it, after all.”  
  
“It’s more than that, Malfoy,” said Weasley, and blinked slowly at him. “You’re talking like Harry was raised by a family of Muggleborns or something. But Harry was raised in  _complete_ ignorance of his being a wizard. He thought he was a Muggle until he was eleven. He thought his parents were Muggles.”  
  
Draco raised one hand before his face as if to capture a leaf. His heart was beating as slowly in his chest as Weasley had blinked, and he wanted to tell Weasley that was ridiculous, that no one could have been as ignorant of their heritage as that, that there had to be a different, alternative explanation.   
  
But it would explain a lot about Harry. To go in one day—one month?—from someone ordinary to a wizard, and then the Savior of the Wizarding World. Maybe it could explain even the things about Harry Draco had thought were more than a bit mental.  
  
“Accidental magic,” he said, or asked. He wasn’t sure that he could tell, from the croaking nature of his voice, which one.  
  
Weasley shook his head. “He thought they were weird things that happened around him. He didn’t know they were magic.” He snorted a little. “Honestly, Malfoy. You know how carefully the Ministry tries to keep Muggles separate from wizards. Most Muggles don’t think about magic because they  _know_ it doesn’t exist. Harry just thought that he was weird somehow. A freak. That’s what he said his Muggle family called him.”  
  
Draco stared at Harry, and his heart pounded some more. He wanted to talk to Harry, to take him away and ask him if even now he realized how special he was.  
  
But he had to, right? He was making political connections now, and taking advantage of his fame to play a role in the peace process. He cast spells and even used wandless magic in a way that was as natural as breathing. He  _had_ to know.  
  
Harry looked up and caught his eye. Draco nodded in reassurance. Probably too early to hope that the bond was transmitting his emotions back to Harry.  
  
He looked at Weasley. “I don’t want to ask more,” he said firmly. “I promised Harry that I would wait until he wanted to tell me about that part of his life. But it—helps, a little, to know that he didn’t know he was a wizard.”  
  
“No, he never did,” said Weasley, and his face twisted in pity he probably hated to feel as much as Draco hated to see it. “And there are things you can ask him about, right? Things since the war?”  
  
Draco nodded, wondering what Weasley was on about now.  
  
“Then maybe ask him why he knows so much about the Pain Geis.” Weasley cast Harry a look that Draco didn’t know how to interpret. “Ask him why he’s driving himself to the point of collapse to get this peace resolved.”  
  
“He said you knew,” said Draco, stunned into speaking.  
  
“I know what he’s said,” Weasley muttered. “But I don’t think that’s all there is to it.”  
  
Draco watched Harry, how he stood with his attention focused on Granger but an abstract expression on his face all the same, as if he was thinking distantly of all the plans he wanted to put in motion.  _Yes, maybe not._


	17. Threats and Thoroughness

"I do sort of find it strange that Maundy hasn't sent us any threats," Draco finally said at breakfast a few days later, to break the lingering silence between him and Harry about Maundy, and what she was going to do.

Harry looked up with his eyes stained with dreams, as Draco put it to himself. It wasn't the sort of thing he would say aloud because he knew that Harry wouldn't understand, and neither would his mother. "Hmmm?" But before Draco could repeat the question, Harry waved his hand. "Oh. I think my response surprised her. So she's going and gathering her forces. It's not like someone who would use a Pain Geis to tip her hand now."

Draco snorted. "Sometimes I wonder if you're as much of a political genius as you think you are."

"I'm not the genius, Hermione is." Harry was studying a map on the table in front of him. Tired of being shut out, Draco stood and moved around the table. Surprisingly, Harry shifted so that Draco could read over his shoulder.

Draco touched the top of Harry's other shoulder with one wing, and Harry gave a small, responsive shudder. That gave him the courage to whisper, "Someone who would use a Pain Geis the way she did would  _surely_ tip her hand. That was a stupid move for her to make."

Harry nodded slowly. "Well, it wouldn't have been if I had given in to it. Then she would have had a perfect slave, and I'm sure that she would have ordered me not to talk about it. She couldn't have known I could resist the Imperius Curse and even stronger spells."

Draco repressed the quiver of rage that was moving through him for a more productive time. "She  _ought_  to have known that, though. The gossip was all over Hogwarts our fourth year, and the Maundys aren't so isolated that they wouldn't have listened to rumors like that." He let out the quiver of rage, and turned Harry around on the chair to look at him. "And she knew you had a Veela mate. I was right there in the room. How could I  _not_ sense a spell like that and react to it?"

Harry gaped at him. Draco shook him a little. "I know that our bond is weak, but I'm still your mate. What was I going to do? Just ignore it when you started trembling and convulsing beside me? Say that you were weak enough to give in to it after a little fighting. I would still have noticed something before that."

"I thought," said Harry slowly, and fell silent, frowning.

"What?" Draco found himself desperate to know the answer to that silence in a way he had rarely been. He leaned in until his hands were barely holding in the sheathed nails, sliding them slowly up and down Harry's arms. "What?  _Tell me_."

* * *

_I'm not going to obey any bloody orders._

But the thought was automatic, just a little flick of Harry's mind of the kind he would have made no matter who had said that to him. The bigger part of him was preoccupied with two thoughts that he had held in his head at the same time, never realizing they were contradictory.

On the one hand, he had accepted that for Malfoy, this bond was real. He might not like the way Harry didn't act like a traditional submissive, but he considered it his duty to protect Harry. That couldn't have been clearer, after the way he had flown up to meet the dragon Maundy had tossed into the air during the meeting.

On the other hand, Harry had decided that Malfoy would never appreciate or want him because he didn't act like the traditional submissive. Their bond was weak. He would already have let Harry go if the consequence wasn't death, and gone to seek a more suitable mate. Harry couldn't depend on him for the same reason that he couldn't depend on anyone else he disappointed by not being the icon they wanted.

How could both those things be true at the same time? How could Malfoy protect him and not protect him at the same time?

_He can't_.

Harry stood up and pushed the map back across the table. It was a map of Hogwarts, of how it might be rebuilt. Rebuilding the school was something that everyone could agree on, and Harry had thought it would help sustain his peace movement. But at the moment, he had something else on his mind.

"Listen," he told Malfoy. "We need to talk. Is there a private place we can talk that isn't a library, so I don't get distracted with the books, or a bedroom, so you don't get distracted with thoughts of the bond?"

Malfoy folded his arms and frowned at him. "I'm not so weak as you think I am." His wings fluffed up behind him like the tail of an offended cat.

"I know," Harry said. "But I want—I want this to be a neutral room. Without your things, and without mine. There has to be a private place in the Manor like that, right?" He couldn't believe there wasn't. Surely the Malfoys had sometimes entertained guests for political dealings that they had to be careful with, and meet in a neutral setting.

"Yes, there's one like that," said Malfoy, but he didn't make any move to lead Harry to it. "What do we have to talk about?"

Harry met his gaze, and wondered for a moment what he was seeing more of, the human being or the Veela. Then he decided that it didn't matter, just like it wouldn't matter whether someone who was  _truly_ committed to peace was a Muggleborn or a pure-blood. If Harry could trust them to have the same goal, then he could work with them.

"I think that I was mistaken about the bond," he said. "And you. And I want to find out how this is going to work."

Malfoy looked at him, and now he was the one who looked as cold and distant as Harry had been trying to will himself to be. But after a second, he nodded and his wings snapped down behind him, folding neatly along his shoulders.

"Come on, then."

* * *

Draco walked into the business room ahead of Harry, and turned around, telling himself, on the way, not to be too excited. Just because Harry had realized some things were wrong didn't mean they were the same things that Draco cared about.

But he had to admit, as Harry shut the door slowly and came forwards to stand in the middle of the plain, dim room—a single fireplace and a few chairs were its only features—there was at least one sign that gave him hope. Harry was considering Draco with a frown. The frown wasn't unusual.

The focused eyes  _were._ For once, Harry was thinking about the Veela in front of him, the Veela who wanted to protect and pamper him, instead of the peace process or his friends or the war or his past. Draco didn't think that had ever been true before.

"I realized that I was expecting you to protect me," Harry began, pacing slowly back and forth, and looking at Draco all the while.

"You can count on that," Draco interrupted. He had to, as much as he wanted to wait and hear the end of Harry's little speech. The Veela inside him would tolerate no less. "Really, you can. You're it for me. I can't choose anyone else."

Harry gave him a smile that looked sad. "I know, but I'm talking about my perceptions right now. I'm beginning to realize that they're different from reality. If I could go on?"

Draco blinked, and his wings twitched. He considered the expression on Harry's face, as if he was thinking hard. He had seen that expression before, when Harry debated and planned and watched Maundy and spoke at the table during the meeting in the Leaky Cauldron, but never when Harry was thinking about him.

It made all the difference. It made him think about sitting beside Harry in the future when Harry thought, and being proud of his ability to make plans and carry them out, instead of being frustrated because Harry wasn't staying in the house like a submissive should.

Draco nodded. "Continue." He knew his voice was a purr, but Harry did nothing more than shoot him a single long look before he turned around again and returned to his pacing.

"I expected you to protect me," Harry continued. "I was taking that for granted. But I also expected you to give up on me because I'm not what you want." Draco cocked his head. There was no self-pity in Harry's voice. "The bond isn't strong. If you could have someone else, I assumed you would take it."

"I can't," said Draco, and his voice was frozen and brittle. He had thought Harry  _understood_ this. "I can't choose someone else. Maybe you don't have the instincts and the feelings that go with them and make a choice like that impossible, but  _I do_. I have to—"

"Merlin, I know." Harry turned around, and he was steadfast, a wall, and Draco's voice washed over him and broke like a wave. "But knowing that you wanted something else, something I couldn't be, didn't give me any great faith in you. But at the same time, I had faith in you to protect me. Those are contradictions. I have to choose which one I'm going to believe." Harry took a deep breath and his face settled into lines that made him look as though he'd been an adult for years. "And I choose to believe that you'll protect me."

Draco couldn't help himself any more than he could help interrupting earlier. He spread his wings and drifted across the floor towards Harry, caught somewhere between walking and flying, his toes only brushing the carpet. He landed in front of Harry and leaned against him, wings waving slowly back and forth like fronds now.

Harry met his eyes, wary but unafraid. That could describe a lot of his choices and things he'd done over the years, Draco thought, ducking his head and nuzzling Harry's neck beneath his ear. He crooned. Harry lifted a cautious hand and placed it on the back of Draco's head. Draco turned back and forth, purring like a cat until Harry got the idea and started to stroke his hand slowly through Draco's hair.

"I know that I've told you what I won't do," Harry finally whispered. "What I won't be. And you've told me what you can't help being. But what if we acknowledged that there was still—that we should talk about what we  _can_ do? And what we can help? I think that would be a lot better."

Draco responded with a warble that trilled up and down the scale, and saw Harry staring at him as if he had never seen him before. Draco turned his head to the side, exposing his face in profile, and spread his wings around him. He wished that he had a background of leaves and a waterfall so he could  _really_ pose and preen, but Harry should get the idea.

Harry began gently rubbing behind Draco's ear again. Draco brought his wings forwards and used them to cup Harry's face.

"That's all I want," Draco breathed. He thought he could have flown without the use of his wings, simply borne on the vaulting excess of his love and joy. "All I've ever wanted. A chance to prove myself to you."

Harry nodded as if the words made sense to him now and asked, "Well, what can you do?"

"I can protect you," said Draco. He put his arms around Harry, and Harry didn't relax into them but didn't stand so stiffly, either. Draco's pulse fluttered in his throat. "I can guard you. I can give you whatever you want that costs money."

Harry gave him an odd smile, so distant and wistful that Draco wondered what he was thinking about. But on the other hand, he had the right to ask now, so he did. "What are you thinking about?"

* * *

_Huh,_ Harry decided after a moment of utter shock.  _He must be paying a lot of attention to me to know that it wasn't what's right in front of me._

And that caused a strange feeling of exhilaration to sweep through Harry. Someone was paying attention, and that might mean he could get help he needed and maybe—keeping in mind that they hadn't begun very well—just speak like a normal human being, too. He answered. "I was just wishing that you could buy some peace for me and the wizarding world. But I don't think that's likely."

Malfoy crowded closer to him. Harry didn't feel stifled, the way he had earlier when Malfoy had tried to surround him with his wings or hold him close. Maybe it was because he knew now that he just had to push on those wings and Malfoy would let him go at once.

"I can't buy the whole world peace, no," Malfoy said, his voice low. "That would take more Galleons than even I possess. But I think I could purchase a special form of peace for you."

"You can?" Harry asked. "Would you know who the best people are to bribe, who would stay bribed? That's something I haven't tried because I can't be sure." He also knew Hermione didn't like it, but honestly, that weighed less with him than spending money to no good purpose.

Malfoy laughed, softly. "You're full of surprises. But no, I wasn't thinking of bribes. I was thinking of Dreamless Sleep Potion, so you could have a quiet night." His fingers brushed what must be a dark circle under Harry's left eye. "I know you don't sleep well."

"That doesn't come from nightmares," Harry began. If Malfoy was worried about something nonexistent, Harry could at least set that at rest. They had enough to be concerned about that was real.

"I know," said Malfoy. "I thought it probably came from lying awake at night and being unable to stop your mind from racing. Your head is full of plans. You need sleep, too, though, Harry." He twisted himself around Harry, suddenly more snake than bird. "You  _have_ to sleep."

"How did you know that?" Harry shook his head, and shook it again. It wasn't that his friends weren't concerned about him, or observant, but they hadn't picked up on that exact and  _particular_ worry.

Malfoy paused, and then seemed to lose the sinuous grace that had entwined him with Harry at the same moment as he lost the certainty. "I don't know," he said, and struggled to draw back. Harry carefully unpicked a wingtip from his hair; his own struggle was not to smile. "I suppose…the bond must be working?"

Harry opened his mouth, then shut it. Malfoy peered intently at him. "What is it? Could you feel it?"

"No," said Harry.

Before, that would have concerned him, the same way it would have if he was around someone with the habit of using Legilimency so he couldn't feel it. But this time, he thought it was wonderful. He had viewed the bond as intrusive, a way for Malfoy to spy on him while Harry couldn't do anything about it. If Harry couldn't feel the bond from his end and couldn't stop it, then that was just one more thing that made him weaker than Malfoy and his "dominant" Veela nonsense.

But if this was the way that it worked, then Harry could honestly see a lot of advantages. Malfoy would get enough information to stop him worrying. Harry would maybe have someone who understood him sometimes without speaking, which he had wished for. And the bond would maybe repair itself and not be a concern anymore.

"Yes," said Harry suddenly, and Malfoy's face shone. Harry realized his mistake, and shook his head irritably. "No, I mean, I couldn't feel the bond working. But I think it's a sign that the bond  _is_ working. And I agree that you couldn't have got that information anywhere but from my own mind."

Malfoy laid a hand that trembled just above his eyes. "And you don't care about that anymore, if I can feel you and hear your thoughts, and you can't hear mine?"

Harry considered Malfoy. A day ago, he would have said that he didn't care about hearing Malfoy's thoughts. That was true, in a way, but phrasing it like that would needlessly hurt Malfoy.

Now, it was…

He didn't care about it in the way Malfoy meant, and would have liked him to. He didn't feel the same desire for the connection and the bond that Malfoy did.

But it  _did_ mean that he didn't mind Malfoy drawing from the bond to get some things Malfoy himself wanted and needed. It didn't make Harry weaker than Malfoy. No matter what they did, what changed in relation to each other, Harry  _wasn't_ weaker. He wasn't submissive, and wouldn't allow himself to be.

What they could be was normal, maybe, giving and taking.

And that, Harry would like.

"No, I don't mind," he said, and Malfoy's face blazed as bright as his feathers, lit from behind by true interior radiance.

 


	18. Allies and Altogether

Harry settled back and smiled as he read the newspaper article. He could sense Malfoy shifting behind him. He had got up to wander over to a sideboard that the house-elves had left loaded with food, and then never quite wandered back again. Harry thought it was probably just an impulse to be close to Harry.  
  
Harry stretched the paper over his shoulder so Malfoy could see it. Malfoy immediately bent down near him and sniffed his ear, then took the paper. Even that didn’t bother Harry as much as it would have last week, he thought, picking up a banger from his plate.  
  
 _I’m getting used to this bond. It’s not something I would have chosen, but there are things you can get used to._  
  
“I don’t understand why that’s a good thing,” said Malfoy’s voice a second later, a deep rumble that made Harry grin into his teacup.  
  
“Because they’re not siding with Maundy,” Harry explained, leaning backwards so he could smile at Malfoy’s face from upside-down. “They’re partially blaming me for the failure of the meeting, sure, and I would rather they didn’t do that. But they say that it happened because I reacted to a ‘pain spell,’ and she tried to use ‘a device’ on me.” Harry wondered how reliable the information had been, from someone who was there or someone who knew someone who was. It was hard to tell if the other pure-bloods had known what Maundy’s dragon really was, or had believed in Harry’s explanation of the Pain Geis.  
  
 _It all happened so quickly, and a lot of people aren’t used to situations as quick as that one,_ Harry thought to himself, breathing softly on the steam rising from his cup.  
  
“So they blame you and blame her at the same time?” Malfoy’s fingernails stroked his shoulder, and Harry found himself closing his eyes. Malfoy’s nails were sharper than normal, on the edge of becoming claws, he supposed, but it was soothing this time, like a deep scratching of an itch. “Why does that work?”  
  
Harry shrugged, half-opening his eyes. “They satisfy the public attitude for news about me, and yet make it clear that I’m not the only one to blame.”  
  
“You shouldn’t need to be satisfied with something so poor.” Malfoy stooped down so he was breathing directly on Harry’s earlobe. “To think it’s _good_ when an article portions out the blame.”  
  
“I’m used to being blamed completely for everything from the war to the release of Slytherin’s monster from the Chamber of Secrets,” said Harry wryly, and set down his cup a little harder than necessary. “Yes, this feels like a reprieve. It’s ambiguous enough that at least some people will be on my side.”  
  
Malfoy nuzzled his ear again, then reluctantly straightened up when Harry moved away. “Are we going to Hogwarts today?”  
  
Harry glanced at him over his shoulder and nodded. “I think it’s important. We can show them that some magical creatures are also committed to the rebuilding of the school.”  
  
Malfoy looked startled, then thoughtful. Harry wondered if he was getting better at reading Malfoy, or if a Veela was simply more open with his mate. “I suppose I do count as a magical creature now,” he murmured.  
  
Harry grinned and stood up, swallowing the rest of his tea. “You do. Now, let me go get dressed…”  
  
“I can advise you on what to wear,” Malfoy said, and stood up with his head cocked to the side, his eyes trailing up and down Harry’s body.  
  
Although Harry suspected more than one motive for Malfoy’s sudden desire to help him dress, he didn’t intend to make a big deal of it. He simply shrugged. “This isn’t one of the big meetings where a lot of people will be there observing me and judging me if I don’t conform exactly to pure-blood fashions.”  
  
Malfoy made a little humming noise under his breath and spread his wings, somehow making them droop like giant palm fronds. Harry honestly wasn’t sure how he was doing that. “Well. You’d deprive me of the pleasure of dressing you?”  
  
“Not if you want to,” Harry had to say. He _did_ get articles published in the papers about how he needed a more formal style, anyway. “I was just saying that we don’t need to put as much effort into it as we did with something like last meeting.”  
  
“ _That_ was only your effort. I wasn’t _allowed_ to help.”  
  
Harry bit his lip to avoid saying something spiteful, and nodded. “That’s true. You can help now if you want.”  
  
“I’ll _always_ want,” Malfoy said, in the low tones that made it sound like a threat, and stepped up beside Harry. For a second, his hand was on Harry’s shoulder, and then the sharp-feeling nails brushed through and caught in Harry’s hair. “You have no idea how deep my desire runs.”  
  
Harry half-blinked and hunched a shoulder towards him. “I might. Where are these clothes that will fit me? Or are you going to make do with the contents of my trunk?”  
  
“I don’t intend to _make do_ with anything,” said Malfoy, his voice sharp again, and swept Harry up the stairs as fast as they could go without Malfoy actually flying him.  
  
*  
  
Draco could hardly believe that he was the first person to help Harry dress.  
  
Well, Harry had _said_ that Granger sometimes advised him on what to wear, and so did the Greengrasses when they were negotiating with other pure-bloods, but Granger didn’t have any interest in Harry and the Greengrasses wouldn’t be coming near him again. That gave Draco the honor.  
  
Harry raised his eyebrows when he saw the immense line of robes and shirts in Draco’s cupboards, but he didn’t say anything. He simply watched as Draco took out robes of green and blue and other deep colors that would suit his mate, and laid them gently on the bed. Then Draco looked at him and held up his wand.  
  
“I can spell the clothes on you and off again, if you prefer?” he offered.  
  
Harry gave him a look that Draco thought was at least as deep as his cupboard. Then he shook his head and stood up. “No, I reckon I’m all right,” Harry said, and stripped off his robes in one smooth motion.  
  
Draco found it hard to breathe. Harry’s back was mottled with scars, a length of muscle that caused Draco’s mouth to water, a fresh bruise—  
  
“Where did the bruise come from?” Draco asked, and although his voice was quiet Harry was wise enough to look around with quick wariness.  
  
“I didn’t know I had one,” Harry said. Draco stepped forwards and laid his hand against it, and Harry jumped and swore a little. “Well, _now_ I know I do,” he said, and scowled a bit at Draco. “It’s from the Pain Geis.”  
  
Draco blinked and flattened out his hand so he was touching just lightly with his fingertips on top of the bruise, not enough to hurt. “I thought the Pain Geis only caused pain that didn’t leave bruises.” If that wasn’t true, he was going to cuff Harry for lying to him, and hurt Maundy in ways she couldn’t have imagined.  
  
“No,” said Harry, and grimaced. “I think I banged into the back of the chair when I was shaking.”  
  
“ _Convulsing_ ,” Draco corrected him, and draped himself a little more over Harry, shaking his head. “I don’t understand why I didn’t sense this…”  
  
His voice trailed off. Now he did. It was the bloody weak bond they had. Of course he wasn’t going to sense anything when he couldn’t feel most of Harry’s emotions. Harry had barely registered the pain of the spell.  
  
“I need you to talk to me,” Draco whispered into Harry’s ear, and took his hand away when he saw Harry shudder a little. He was probably pressing harder on the bruise without meaning to. “If the bond won’t give us the strength that should be ours—if the bond is weak because of things that you won’t tell me about and you can’t help—then the words are even more important.”  
  
“Are they?” Harry glanced back at him, and his face had an expression other than the boredom or the bleak defiance Draco had expected. Not that that helped him put a name to the expression, and he stepped from foot to foot in exasperation. Harry’s eyes softened a little. “It isn’t your fault that you didn’t notice this bruise. Neither did I.”  
  
“But you knew where it must have come from.” Draco stepped closer again, but managed to keep from touching the bruise. He just bent over Harry instead, and sheltered him like a drooping tree.   
  
“When I thought about it, I did.” Harry shrugged. “I haven’t hit my back on anything else lately.” He sighed and straightened up when Draco did some more doubtful, hard staring in his direction. “I appreciate the way you try to take care of me, Draco. I _do_. But I don’t want you to blame yourself. What would you have done if you knew I had this bruise?”  
  
“Put you to bed,” Draco said instantly. “Made sure that you had all the Pain-Killing Draughts you needed and pillows behind your head and hot drinks and sleeping potions—”  
  
Harry turned around and gave Draco his first glimpse of Harry’s bare chest. Not that he could properly appreciate it right now, when Harry’s eyes were on his, intense and not letting his gaze go. “And it would have been wasted effort, because I wouldn’t have stayed in bed. I have things to do.”  
  
“Does your health mean nothing to you?” Draco touched Harry’s chest. There was an old scar there, a sloppy round one. Draco stared at it. He could finally look away from Harry’s face. “I’d think that you would want to stay in good health for the sake of your alliances and peace process, if you don’t care about yourself or me.”  
  
“I phrased that badly, then.” Harry sounded a little upset as he reached up to catch Draco’s hand, and for a second, Draco felt flickers of that through the bond, too. He crooned wistfully. Things would be so much _easier_ if he and Harry were bonded like a normal pair. “I mean that I would take care of myself, but a bruise is tiny in the scheme of things.”  
  
“I’m not waiting until you get cursed by another Dark Lord to start taking care of you,” Draco said tightly.  
  
“You can take care of me.” Draco opened his mouth, and Harry gave him a flat look. “ _When_ I’m injured and so on. Or threatened, the way you did when Maundy sent that dragon after me. But it’s ridiculous to put me to bed for a bruise, and I think you know it. If that’s the kind of thing a dominant Veela would do to a normal submissive mate, well, then guess which part doesn’t apply to me.”  
  
Draco hunched his wings, a little miserable. He had thought the other day that he didn’t want anyone except Harry as his mate, but what _was_ permissible if he couldn’t do the things that his instincts were urging him on to do?  
  
“You can dress me.”  
  
Draco came slowly out of his daze, and blinked. Harry stood in front of him with his back turned again, looking at the robes on the bed. “What?”  
  
“You said that you were going to dress me and show me what would be appropriate to wear.” Harry glanced at him with bright eyes. “Or is that not the plan anymore?”  
  
“It’s the plan,” Draco said, but he narrowed his eyes a little as he picked up a green robe. “Are you manipulating me with pleasure to get out of talking about the bruise and the things that are appropriate for a Veela to do to his mate?”  
  
“I’m having you do something I thought we would both enjoy more,” Harry said. He reached for his own robes. “Or I can go on wearing these—”  
  
“No, I want to,” Draco said. “I want to,” he repeated, a little harder, when Harry’s hand lingered on the robes for a second.  
  
Harry nodded and stepped back, arms relaxed and down at his sides. “I’m all yours,” he said.  
  
Draco hissed softly, the possessive side of him awakened. He could satisfy it by sliding the robe over Harry’s head, though, and guiding his arms through the armholes, and sighing as he watched the rich color contrast with Harry’s pale skin and complement his dark hair and his eyes, almost the same color as the cloth. Draco smoothed the robe down over Harry’s chest and nodded.  
  
“Here,” he said, and turned Harry around so he was facing the mirror.  
  
Harry caught his breath. Draco didn’t miss that. He stalked a little closer and lifted his wings so that he could fan them gently, blowing a small breeze that made Harry’s robes ripple and spread away from his body.  
  
“You like that.” Draco didn’t mean for his voice to sound so guttural. It just happened.  
  
“I do,” said Harry. “I never thought…just one _color_ could make a difference.” He turned back and forth, cocking his head as if he wanted to see the various angles his chin could adopt over the collar. “Only I don’t like the lace on the cuffs.”  
  
Draco flexed his hands, and then reached out and sliced his nails down the lace. It dropped to the floor in ruined pieces, and Harry blinked and stared down at them, then tilted his head back so he could consider Draco face-to-face.  
  
Draco blinked a little and flexed his nails again. "Did you not want that to happen?" he asked. He couldn't apologize, because the gesture had been his own idea and had seemed so perfect, but he could say _this_.  
  
"No, it's okay," Harry said, and looked up. "I just didn't expect it." He turned around and considered himself in the mirror again. Then he lifted his wand and flicked it, expertly knitting up the raveled edges of the cuffs. He nodded. "There. What do you think I look like now?"  
  
Draco stared at him, and found only one answer hovering on the back of his tongue.   
  
"Wonderful," he said, mixing it with a croon, and moved forwards to lay his hands on Harry's shoulders again, so Harry could see his head in the mirror framed by the wings.  
  
Harry caught his breath again for a minute. Draco _knew_ he did. He couldn't be this close and miss the significance of that shuddering of skin, or the slight gasp on the edges of Harry's tongue.  
  
But Harry didn't dwell on it, and didn't give Draco the chance to do that, either. He simply reached up, squeezed Draco's hands for a second, and then gently pushed them off his shoulders, and said, "We really _are_ going to be late for the meeting if we don't hurry."  
  
"Is your life a perpetual round of meetings?" Draco grumbled as he tugged his own modified robes off and put another set on, feeling the irritating rustle of cloth along the edges of his wings. But secretly, he was dizzy with pleasure. He wanted to stare at Harry and do nothing else for hours.  
  
"Pretty much," said Harry, and leaned against Draco's bed to wait for him.  
  
Paradoxically, that made Draco work faster on his clothes, as Harry had probably known he would. But he couldn't catch Harry hiding a smile no matter how many times he looked at him.  
  
Draco reckoned he could put up with it, for the sake of all the pleasure Harry had given him. And because Harry was _Harry_.  
  
*  
  
Harry raised his head a little as Malfoy swept him onto the grounds of Hogwarts. He'd flown over the lake, carrying Harry, and now they came down in a soft sweep of flapping wings in the middle of the waiting group of people. There were stares and murmurs, but Harry ignored them as best he could. This _had_ been the fastest way to get here.  
  
And in the meantime, Harry got to surprise some strange expressions on people's faces, and track who seemed dismayed at him showing up with Malfoy, and why.  
  
Helena Greengrass was there, but not Daphne. Daphne's mother met his eyes and nodded coolly, and then swept forwards to meet him. She ignored Draco's warning screech as if it didn't exist. "Have you heard anything from Tamara Maundy?" she asked Harry.  
  
"No," said Harry. "I didn't particularly expect to. She wouldn't want to admit that she embarrassed herself."  
  
"Did she?" Helena's eyes were shadowed. "Did she embarrass herself?"  
  
"She did," said Malfoy, and from the way Helena started and stared at him, she hadn't expected him to participate. "Now, excuse us. We have some _important_ business to attend to." And he swept Harry towards the outer wall of Hogwarts with a single wing around his shoulder.  
  
"You did mean to imply that she wasn't important?" Harry whispered.  
  
Draco gave him a remote glance. "Of _course_ I did. Keep up."  
  
And Harry laughed, and if the people they were approaching stared at him, at least he could say that he would rather get along with his mate and have his help in deciding how to handle some of these problems than walk in the kind of stupid, stubborn silence that had held them apart for the last fortnight.   
  



	19. Rebuilding and Rejecting

Harry took a deep breath before he could tell himself it was ridiculous. But there was something in the air of Hogwarts that tasted fresher than air anywhere else, he told himself, to somewhat defend against the ridiculousness. Maybe it shouldn’t, but it did. That was the only excuse he could offer for his desire to fill his lungs with it, and then turn and face the group that had gathered to discuss the rebuilding of the school, restored.  
  
The group would be contentious enough. There were the Greengrasses off to the left, along with a few of the other pure-blood families who had attended the meeting in the Leaky Cauldron. There were several of the Muggleborns Harry had invited to come back to the wizarding world, most of them staring at Hogwarts with much the same expression as Harry had. There were groups of people Hermione knew, and a representative from the Ministry, and—  
  
Harry blinked. There were also three centaurs, all of them standing so that they formed a triangle. Their hoofs scraped lightly at the ground, and they turned their heads to look at him all at the same moment.  
  
Harry nodded at them. He could welcome them, although he hadn’t thought they would involve themselves either in rebuilding Hogwarts or in the peace effort. They didn’t have much to do with wizarding wars, most of the time.  
  
He tapped his throat with his wand, and cast  _Sonorus._ Malfoy stirred behind him, moving into a place where he could spread his wings. Even before Harry spoke a word, that attracted attention, and people turned and looked at him instead of the building.  
  
Harry smiled at Malfoy. He looked as if he was basking in it. Harry wondered at the simple things that could apparently make a Veela happy.  
  
 _Your mate. The things that can make your mate happy._  
  
Harry was one of them, for whatever strange reason determined by fate.  
  
He put it out of his mind, and turned back to the gathering again. “Thank you for coming,” he said, his voice echoing without effort. “I wanted to discuss putting the school back together physically again, but also doing it in a way that means the people who are making a good-faith effort to get along aren’t excluded again.”  
  
“So this new school will only be for those people who agree with you?” Helena Greengrass wore the politest and most inquiring expression in the place.  
  
“Oh, no,” said Harry, smiling at her. “But their parents probably won’t agree with me. I want to make a school for all children, of all groups and political persuasions. Their parents need to feel free not to contribute time or money or work, though, if that won’t make them happy.”  
  
“Why should they get to benefit from work we do?” demanded one of the Muggleborn witches. Her name was Julia Maranth, and she was powerful. Harry could feel the wind of her magic against his skin when he thought to reach out. “If they don’t work, why should they send their children here?”  
  
Helena Greengrass turned to keep Maranth under observation. Harry made sure to keep smiling. “Because you can’t punish the children for what their parents did,” he said. “They can still attend. Their parents are the ones who won’t have as much input.”  
  
“Because you intend to exile them?” asked Carnavon, who was there again.  
  
 _Of course he is,_ Harry thought.  _We can’t give up a chance to create trouble, can we?_ “Because they aren’t here and presumably don’t care,” he said. “They would be happy to keep up separate House rivalries and stereotypes about other people and all the rest of the nonsense, wouldn’t they? We have to be the ones who can think beyond that. We can, since we’re here.”  
  
“You can’t force the Houses to get along.” Carnavon said that as if it was some sort of sacred truth. Beside him, his wife sighed.  
  
“No,” Harry agreed. “But we can try to make sure that everyone knows the school is for everyone, not just the people gathered here today. The ones who aren’t here won’t be able to pick out the colors of the stone we choose for the walls or help us raise the wards, though. Since they aren’t here.”  
  
 _Keep to simple ideas,_ Hermione had told Harry when he began this campaign. It hadn’t always worked, particularly when Harry got tangled in some of the arguments about blood purity, which was supported by some complicated nonsense. But it worked when he could follow it.  
  
Carnavon subsided into grumbling silence, and Harry looked around. The crowd was smaller than he had thought it would be, but, well, he would work with what he had. “Does anyone have suggestions to make about where we should begin?”  
  
Maranth leaned forwards. “With some kind of assurance that the Houses constructed for the Muggleborns won’t be invaded by pure-bloods.”  
  
“There won’t be separate Houses for people based on blood status,” said Harry, blinking. Could someone have misunderstood the references he was making to Houses  _that_ badly? “That would only exacerbate the problem.”  
  
“But it would preserve these separate cultures that people are always chattering about.” Maranth cast a burning glance at Greengrass. “That way, they could have their culture and we could have  _ours_.”  
  
“The people at stake here are your children,” said Harry. He didn’t know if Maranth had children, but the point stood. “Not  _you_ , personally.”  
  
“You know what I mean,” said Maranth.  
  
“No,” said Harry. “Not exactly. I thought you were more open-minded, simply because you had been among the group that got discriminated against, but if you choose to turn against the pure-bloods because—”  
  
“Turn against the pure-bloods,” said someone in a high, mocking imitation of his voice from back in the crowd. “As though we  _could._ As though we would have enough power to matter.”  
  
“The point isn’t who has the most power,” Harry said quietly. “The point is that we don’t want another war, and part of the war was started and encouraged here, in the corridors that watched Gryffindors and Slytherins battling. And if anyone insists on separation, then we’ll end up with a situation that’s similar in outline, if not in the particulars.”  
  
“The particulars matter a lot,” said Helena. “I think that most of our—neighbors would agree with me.” She nodded to the group of Muggleborns. “Why shouldn’t we have separate cultures flourishing side by side? Children who need to be taught extra terminology about the wizarding world, and children who can receive advanced lessons from the time they’re elven, because they grew up in that world?”  
  
“There would be no question of advanced lessons,” said Maranth, and her face was cold. “If we had to learn your culture, your children would have to learn ours.”  
  
Helena’s face wore the small smile that Harry had seen on Daphne’s when she thought she was winning something. “But why should we? You hardly live in the Muggle world, and no one that  _I’ve_ raised would want to do so, either.”  
  
“If you think our culture is the Muggle culture—”  
  
“I think your culture is the interfering one,” Helena clarified smoothly. “The interloping one. The one that insists that we should conform to all the sensibilities and prejudices you don’t even realize you have, because to you everything you do and think is rational.”  
  
Harry sent up a volley of sparks from his wand, spattering silver against the air and falling back down on the crowd. Helena and Maranth turned to stare at him.  
  
“If you care more about that argument than about rebuilding Hogwarts,” Harry said, “I’ll ask you both to leave.” He felt Malfoy shift behind him, wings straightening out, as though he was going to shield Harry from blows, but both Helena and Maranth seemed content to fight this contest with words and stares. “You can come back and continue your argument another time. Or reunite once you leave here and continue it.”  
  
“I care about the future of my children,” Maranth said stiffly. “I want to raise them here in the wizarding world,  _if_ it becomes less stagnant.”  
  
“And I want to raise mine in a world that has respect for their traditions,” Helena retorted.  
  
“ _I_ wish I had grown up in a wizarding world that realized children needed to know more than what they come in with when they’re eleven,” Harry interrupted them. “For one thing, apparently everyone knows about Veela bonds and doesn’t discuss them, because they’re a fairy tale that most people don’t expect to happen to them.”  
  
Malfoy’s wings rattled anxiously. Harry turned and smiled at him, and whether from that or from the emotions that might be flowing through the tattered conduit of their bond, Malfoy seemed to trust him. He relaxed, and Harry squeezed his hand once and turned to face the crowd again.  
  
“I would have caused my mate less pain, if I knew about them,” Harry said. “But  _no one_ took the time to teach me. Everyone assumed I knew it. Or they didn’t know about it at all and didn’t know they could learn.” He tilted his head towards Hermione, also managing to include Maranth in there, since she stood in the same general direction. “So children like that—children like I was—need more people to stop assuming that they know everything,  _and_ they need more people to stop assuming there’s nothing to learn. We need both.”  
  
“Not many people are like you, Mr. Potter,” said Maranth, with a smile that she probably thought was soothing. Harry thought it was incredibly patronizing.  
  
“Really?” Harry arched his eyebrows. “You think I’m not like a Muggleborn because of who my father was? You think that most children will be coming in with more ignorance than I did? That I had some kind of  _instinctive_ knowledge because of my last name?”  
  
Maranth seemed to realize what she had said, and scrambled to retain a lost position. “I was referring to the matter of your fame—”  
  
“Then take the testimony of another Muggleborn,” said Hermione crisply, and stepped up beside Harry. “A real one, if Harry isn’t real enough for you. I read and reread my schoolbooks before I came to Hogwarts. I could answer most of the questions that the professors asked on the first day.” Remembering Snape and how he had ignored Hermione’s raised hand in Potions class, Harry nodded. “But I was only knowledgeable about that. What happened outside of classes, the history behind blood purity beliefs and even the war, what I needed to do to avoid offending people or fit in with them—I didn’t know any of that. This ‘separation’ and ‘preservation’ nonsense isn’t going to accomplish anything. It’ll only result in generation after generation growing up ignorant.”  
  
Silence. Maranth and Helena looked at each other as if they were reconsidering the possibility of an alliance in the face of an allied Harry and Hermione. Harry doubted it would lead to a full reconciliation any time soon, but at least it was giving them ideas.  
  
“The problem would be solved if there weren’t so many Muggleborns coming into our world,” said Helena.  
  
Harry turned to face her. “If you’re a proponent of that particularly loathsome proposal put into circulation a while ago—the one about suppressing Muggleborns’ magic and  _Obliviating_ them—then you might as well leave now. I won’t tolerate that.”  
  
“You think your opinion is the only one that matters here?” Helena could be an immovable wall when she wanted to.  
  
“No,” said Harry. “But I think that no one else here is in favor of that, either.”  
  
He looked around, and found no nods of support for Helena, not even from Carnavon. Probably most people, even if they didn’t hate the idea, knew that such a tactic would require too much coordination. The Obliviators already had trouble keeping knowledge of the wizarding world from Muggles. What was going to happen if they started concentrating on keeping Muggleborn children under control as well?  
  
“Do you believe it?” Harry demanded. “Do you think that the only way to reconcile with Muggleborns is to cheat them out of their magic?”  
  
Helena stood still, and said nothing.  
  
“Then leave,” said Harry, and Draco lifted his head and uttered a long shriek that seemed to tear its way out of his chest.  
  
Helena fell back a step, her hands going to her ears. Harry stared at her curiously. Sure, the shriek had been loud, but it hadn’t hurt his ears, and no one else was reacting in the same way. Maybe this was yet another of the Veela powers that no one had bothered to explain to Harry.  
  
 _I need these things_ explained.  _Maybe it’s time to put a stop to meetings for a few hours so I can sit down with Draco and really lay out all the things mated Veela are capable of, and which of them can protect me and which of them I have to be careful not to rouse._  
  
“You heard me,” said Draco, and his arms came around Harry’s waist as he leaned forwards. Unusually, he had his wings fanned back as if he wanted to keep them out of the way, and Harry imagined for a second what he must look like: a falcon or hawk with uplifted pinions, getting ready to swoop. “If you can’t endure my voice, you can’t be near my mate.”  
  
A murmur traveled through most of the pure-bloods gathered there, and even some of the Muggleborns. Harry stifled a sigh.  _Another bloody thing that I don’t know and have to find out. I need to dedicate a whole day to this, not just a few hours._  
  
“He’s right,” said Carnavon’s wife, after a few glances at her husband that Harry knew meant she was waiting for him to speak up. The woman herself sounded grimly resigned. “A Veela’s shriek can’t hurt anyone except someone who wishes his mate ill. And if it hurts you, then you would be a liability anyway. We have to deal with Mr. Potter, and where he is, of course his mate will be as well.”  
  
 _They accept it so easily,_ Harry thought. He couldn’t envision the world where he would, but it was also hard for him to think about what his life would have been like if his parents had lived. Maybe that was one of the things he would have known then, and rejoiced in.  
  
“Go,” said Draco, and his wings moved so that Harry could just see the moving shadows out of the corners of his eyes. “Unless you want a taste of my claws as well as of my scream.”  
  
Harry tensed. A threat like that would hurt the success of their campaign, or would have if it was uttered under other circumstances.  
  
But it seemed that Helena wasn’t someone who would bring up those circumstances. She stood still for a long time instead, her eyes so bright and vicious and wild that Harry did think she would attack, and touched his wand where it sat up his sleeve.  
  
In the end, she chose to turn and walk away. Harry sighed. He wondered if she had always pretended to go along with what he believed and had only been using him for political advantage, or if the way she acted had only changed to this after Harry rejected her daughter. He didn’t think he would ever know, though, and he didn’t want to waste time on questions he couldn’t resolve.  
  
“Now,” he said, and faced the other groups standing there. “Can we get back to talking about Hogwarts instead of utter nonsense that no one should support?”  
  
*  
  
The signals were there, subtle ones that Draco doubted anyone else would notice. But then, he didn’t  _want_ those people to notice them. They were for his eyes alone.  
  
Well, all right, it would have been satisfying if Aloren had been there, him with his conviction that their bond was tattered and would never heal, and could blink when he noticed how Draco’s mate was responding to him. But that was the only audience Draco would have wished for.  
  
Harry no longer started when Draco embraced him, or when his wings moved. In fact, he argued and spoke some of the time as if he had forgotten Draco was holding him.  
  
Not a victory, for most Veela, but in this case, when Harry had been so stiff and rejected even the barest touches, Draco was prepared to count it as one.  
  
There was the way, too, that Harry had leaned towards him when Helena had started speaking. It could be a mixture of revulsion for what he felt towards that (ridiculous, Draco had to agree) suggestion about suppressing the magic of Muggleborns and determination to get away from Helena, but Draco didn’t think so. He thought Harry was finally feeling that instinctive trust in their mate that most submissives felt from the beginning.  
  
In this case, it was worth more, because Draco had  _earned_ it. He knew he could have done things that would have made Harry distrust him and edge towards Granger instead. But he hadn’t.   
  
And now he had his reward: the soft tickle of Harry’s hair under his chin, the smell of him echoing through Draco’s nostrils, the shifts in his muscles that Draco knew how to read.  
  
And he had driven an enemy away, and he knew Harry would ask him about that later. The thought of his mate’s words warmed him like wine.  
  
He rested his chin on top of Harry’s head, and fanned his wings back and forth, and enjoyed the rest of the meeting.


	20. Veela and Various Surprises

“You can ask me anything you want,” Draco said, and spread his wings a little and bowed, trying to show how sincere he was. He didn’t know if he and Harry spoke the same language of gestures; that was the only thing holding him back from crooning with approval when Harry asked for more information about Veela.  
  
Harry paced slowly back and forth in front of him. This time, they were in one of the first-floor sitting rooms at the Manor where nothing negative had ever happened between them. The books on the shelves were strictly legal ledgers pertaining to Malfoy business, and Harry had said he wouldn’t get distracted by them. Draco had no problem retrieving his attention if he did become distracted, honestly. This was probably his best chance to make sure that Harry understood more about some situations he should have asked about long since.  
  
 _He_ would  _have asked about them long since, if he was a normal mate. Or he wouldn’t have had to ask because he would know._  
  
Draco sighed and reminded himself of the speech Harry had given at Hogwarts, in which he’d more than admitted his ignorance. Draco shouldn’t want to berate him any longer.  
  
 _Maybe I’m not a normal Veela any more than he’s a normal mate, if I want to._ On the other hand, Draco didn’t think a normal Veela could cope with Harry Potter.  
  
“Ask your questions,” he finally prompted, when Harry kept pacing. “Don’t worry about phrasing them diplomatically. Fling them at me. I would rather know more about what you’re thinking than anything else in the world.”  
  
Harry turned around and gave him a faint, strained smile. “You may come to regret that,” he murmured, but he shook his head and finally gave in. “All right. I want to know how often Veela bonds actually happen.”  
  
“To wizards?” Draco sat down in one of the chairs he had Transfigured when they came into the room, removing the back and the arms so he could stretch his wings more comfortably. He never took his eyes from Harry, though. While he was doing better with a lot of things himself, just as Harry was, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Harry would bolt for the door the minute Draco looked away. “Not often. A lot of Veela find their mates among their own kind, or even other magical beings. Or Muggles.”  
  
Harry nodded distractedly. “I was wondering if Hogwarts swarmed with them, and I just didn’t notice.” He came over and sat on a chair in front of Draco.  
  
“How would you notice?” Draco murmured, bristling on Harry’s behalf, even though it was his mate criticizing himself, not someone else doing it. “You had a war to fight. You were above mere matters of love and romance.”  
  
Harry shrugged. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have been trying to be.” He tapped his foot on the floor, a fast beat that he stilled when he saw the way Draco looked at it. But he didn’t apologize for it, and neither did Draco. “What exactly happens with egg-laying?”  
  
Draco blinked, but answered. He could never predict the way Harry’s mind was going to leap. He didn’t know why this particular question had surprised him so much. “The Veela and the mate do have sex. But they pour the energy that the sex raises into the bond, instead of just using it make each other feel good—”  
  
“You can do that?”  
  
Draco blinked again, and again. He had thought Harry would know this, he realized with a dull thump in the back of his mind. The one thing everyone knew about Veela, surely, was the way they could enchant, the incredible pleasure they could cause with their touch.  
  
 _Perhaps it’s just as well if I stop assuming,_ he told himself firmly again, and released a long breath. “Yes,” he said. “It would take a bond that was working fully, so you could feel my emotions, but I can make you feel incredibly good during sex.” He had been about to say that “a Veela” could “make his mate” feel, but he didn’t want to do that. He didn’t want to shove Harry away from the notion, which seemed to have surprised him, but not upset him.  
  
“Huh,” said Harry. “Well—I suppose that makes more sense why people would regard a Veela bond as such a blessing.”  
  
Draco held back the instinctive defense he still wanted to give, and instead nodded. “I wouldn’t do it without your consent,” he said. “And like I said, it wouldn’t work anyway until we manage to repair the bond.” He wouldn’t let himself use the word “unless.” Not now, not like this.  
  
Harry watched him through heavy-lidded eyes for a second, conjuring up all sorts of delightful pictures in Draco’s mind. Then he shook his head, and said, “Go back to explaining about egg-laying.”  
  
“They take the energy and pour it into a container they’ve already prepared,” said Draco, and was proud of himself for keeping his voice almost dry, a lecture instead of an attempt at seduction. “This needs to be something like a basket, or a hollowed-out stone. The magic transforms it into the shell of the egg. Then the Veela and the mate cast more spells on the egg, for several days, and that fills the egg with enough power that it reaches a—a peak where it can either spill over or has to be used somehow.”  
  
“I think I know what you mean,” Harry said, lifting a hand as Draco paused and fumbled for words. “Sometimes I can feel the magic rearing up in me like that.”  
  
Draco bit his tongue against the question  _he_ wanted to ask, which was  _How are you still alive, then?_ For a wizard to be able to raise that much magic on his own was rare. To withstand the onslaught was almost unknown. Perhaps Harry had always been able to use it immediately after he raised it, which would have solved the problem.  
  
“You can ask it, if you want,” Harry told him, and lounged against the back of the chair in what Draco thought was a pose of indifference only. “The thing that everyone wants to ask after they hear about that.”  
  
Draco swallowed back jealousy that he wasn’t the first one who had ever wondered about Harry’s powerful magic, and asked instead, “Lots of people ask you about Veela eggs and the way that you would pour the power into one?”  
  
That at least made Harry laugh, and Draco watched in helpless devotion as the corners around his eyes crinkled. “No,” said Harry, and a smile lingered on his lips as the laughter died. “I mean they ask me how I got powerful. If it’s some sort of legacy from Voldemort or the like.”  
  
“Well,” Draco said, and hesitated.  
  
“No,” said Harry. “It isn’t. And honestly, I don’t think that I’m so much stronger than other people.” Draco snorted, but Harry shook his head with a quickness that Draco was already learning meant Harry was serious. “No, hear me out. I think what it is, is that most people use their magic more than I do. I mean, to cast ordinary, everyday spells. I don’t use it as often, so it seems more impressive when it builds up like that and then I unleash it in a burst like I tend to.” He grinned at Draco. “You use magic to fetch your books and change your clothes and clean up after yourself. I was raised by Muggles.” For once, he didn’t say it bitterly. “There are still all sorts of things I think of doing with my hands.”  
  
“Maybe,” Draco said doubtfully. He thought there did have to be something special and different about his mate, or there was no way that magic, destiny, fate—call it what you will—would have picked him for Draco, but perhaps that was something he could leave Harry to reveal in time. “Anyway. You want me to go back to telling you about the egg?”  
  
Harry nodded. He was serious and intent again, just like that, eyes measuring Draco as though he was thinking about the moment when they would create the egg together. Draco smiled at Harry, reassured.  
  
“When the egg is full of magic, brimming with it,” Draco said softly, “they cast a spell that takes hold of the deepest wishes of their hearts for the child. The wishes blend. Neither parent gets exactly what they want. If one of them wants a son, for example, but wishes mostly that the child would be healthy, then they might get a healthy daughter if the other mate wished for a girl more. It’s all about strength of desire.”  
  
“And then they warm the egg, how?” Harry asked. “By sitting on it? Does the baby actually  _hatch_ from it?”  
  
Draco turned his head to the side in a dignified way. “I’ll have you know that Veela resemble birds, but they  _aren’t_ them. We do not sit on our precious eggs, no. We trust the charms to keep them warm. And yes, the children hatch. Less messy and painful than a normal human birthing, you know.”  
  
Harry raised his eyebrows. “But I’ll wager there are some Veela who sneak in and cuddle the eggs to their bare chests when their mates aren’t looking,” he said with deadly accuracy.  
  
Draco felt his mouth drop open. “You—you couldn’t have guessed that if you didn’t know anything about Veela,” he said. “Did you read it in a book somewhere?”  
  
Harry snorted. “No. I only know that Veela seem to be notoriously sentimental, and that’s what they’d do. They might not be birds, but they resemble them, as someone told me just a moment ago.” He folded his arms and tipped his chin up.  
  
“That’s too accurate,” said Draco, and he stood up and crossed to Harry, who only watched him come, blinking in the way he did when he wanted to object to something Draco was doing but didn’t have a reason to do it yet. “Did—did you get the image from my head via the bond?”  
  
“How could I?” Harry slowly stood to face him, looking around as though he expected to see Aloren looming up with a lecture in mind. “You know the bond doesn’t work right.”  
  
“It could be healing.” Draco couldn’t help the excited croon that crept into his voice. “It could be—it could be that the bond will heal over time if we leave it alone, and just spend time with each other and be honest with each other.”  
  
“But Aloren would have said something about it, then.” Harry’s lips had pulled into a frown.  
  
“Would it be so terrible a thing to have a normal bond?” Draco couldn’t help but ask wistfully. “To be able to trust each other completely? You would always know if I was lying, then, and what my desires were. It’s one of the things that help the Veela couple to create an egg,” he added, thinking Harry might want to hear that, with his interest in children. “Because they can trust each other and see into each other’s hearts, they know that neither of them wants something terrible for the child.”  
  
“I don’t want a normal Veela bond because that would make me a submissive slave to you. And I’m not going to be.”  
  
*  
  
Malfoy was watching him as though Harry had just knocked away a ladder he was standing on. Harry gave his head an irritated little shake. Really, what did he think Harry was? Harry had changed his views on the idea that Malfoy was trying to sneak around him or use him somehow, and he could—tentatively—accept that he had been acting silly in the past. But that was a  _long_ way from thinking that he wanted the “normal” kind of bond Malfoy was always prating about.  
  
“I thought we were past this.” Malfoy’s voice was cracking softly, frozen, like ice that Harry had once stepped on when he was still a stupid child living on Privet Drive and believing some of the things Dudley told him, like that you could skate on ice without skates if you just tried hard enough. “If you thought I was trying to enslave you—”  
  
“I don’t think that,” said Harry, and he didn’t. He ran a hand through his hair, wondering how something so simple had turned into this mess. “You said that a normal bond, before, would involve a normal submissive. That is never going to happen. Never.”  
  
He’d fought so hard, he thought, to have something resembling freedom. He might still be restrained by the thoughts of people dear to him and sometimes by what the public would think about something he did, but at least in private life, he was free. He ate when he chose and wore what he liked and went where he wanted. The mere thought of someone taking that away from him made sweat stand out on his palms.  
  
Malfoy gave him a measured look. “I’ve already accepted that any bond I shared with you would be changed from the normal one.”  
  
“You did?” Harry wished he could sound less like a helpless child. But Malfoy was at least easing back now and tilting his head instead of reacting with anger.  
  
“Yes. I know that—I would like more access to your emotions and thoughts.” Malfoy breathed out softly. “But I don’t want you to change your personality and become someone different than you are.”  
  
Harry spent a little while thinking about that. Malfoy let him think, but didn’t move away and didn’t cease his tight monitoring of Harry’s face.  
  
 _So, some consequences of the bond, and not others? As long as he doesn’t want the whole package…_  
  
Harry slowed his breathing and nodded. “All right. I misunderstood. I’m sorry. And there’s something else I want to understand further. The heart of the house. What  _exactly_ does it mean?”  
  
“What Granger told you,” said Malfoy, and he eased back on his heels and gave Harry a confused look. “I was eavesdropping when she told you, remember. What she said, about a Veela submissive controlling the house and the portraits in the house…that’s all true. The house’s defenses are under a submissive’s control.”  
  
“But it must mean something more than that, to mean so bloody much,” said Harry, taking the latent, left-over anger and channeling it into finally requesting information on what he didn’t know. “Because it also has something to do with the submissive staying home all the time and caring for the children, right?”  
  
Malfoy closed his eyes. Harry started to speak, and he shook his head. “No, wait, Harry. I’m not going to deny you an answer. I’m trying to put something into words that’s always been at least two-thirds instinctive understanding for me.”  
  
Harry bit back the snort at the word “instinctive,” and waited. Finally, Malfoy opened his eyes and spoke slowly.  
  
“A heart of the house blends with the house. His senses become the house’s senses. He sees with the eyes of the portraits, feels with the earth of the gardens when someone walks on it—someone who should be there, and someone who shouldn’t. He can hear a baby’s cry anywhere in the house. He can feel it when his mate needs him, as long as that needing happens in the house. The Veela is the one who defends his mate outside the house, because the Veela’s senses function in the open air a lot like the heart of the house’s do inside four walls.”  
  
Harry grunted. That sounded a little more special than Hermione had read about to him, and a little more rational. But it didn’t make him any more keen on the idea. “Is there any particular reason that the heart of the house has to be the submissive one, and not the Veela?”  
  
Malfoy’s eyes were back on him in an instant, parted from their abstract stare into the distance. “You said that you didn’t want anyone else to be the submissive, either. I thought.”  
  
Harry sighed. “I phrased that badly, then. You’re not the only one who does things like that.” He shook his head. “But why couldn’t the submissive and the Veela share the responsibility for caring for the house between them? Or why doesn’t the one who stays home feel stronger? Or the one who was born in the house? It seems like it would make more sense for  _you_ to know when something’s wrong in the Manor, because you were the one who was raised here.”  
  
“That’s not the way it works,” Malfoy said. “Just as both partners among birds don’t usually defend the nest equally.”  
  
“But Veela aren’t birds, you said.”  
  
Malfoy scowled a little. “Are you going to throw all my words back into my face?”  
  
“I’m trying to  _understand_ ,” Harry said. “Why this is a good thing, why you want it so much. And why it wouldn’t be a good idea to share this power, if it exists. It sounds like the Veela and the mate share the making of their child. Why don’t they share anything else? Why is so much of their partnership separate?”  
  
Malfoy paused and gave a dazed blink. “I never thought about it like that,” he said.  
  
Harry nodded. “I think that’s something we need to consider,” he said. “We need to—talk about a lot of things.” He was still more intrigued than he should be at the thought that Veela could make sex pleasant for their partners. It was worth exploring, or seemed like it, but at the same time, it seemed sort of childish when it came to the list of things that were important to understand.  
  
“Including some about you.” Malfoy melted towards him.  
  
“What?” Harry looked sharply at him.  
  
“I won’t ask about the things that you told me not to ask about.” Malfoy’s voice was soft and breathy as he wrapped his arm around Harry’s waist. “But I want to know about the other things. More about the aftermath of the war. More about your beliefs, and why you’re so set on not having a normal bond.”  
  
Harry hesitated, then shrugged. “Why not, if it’ll help?” He left up in the air what it would help, and he noticed the sweet, smug smile from Malfoy that suggested Malfoy had his own thoughts on what Harry had meant. He turned around to lead the way out of the room. “But let’s have lunch first. I’m starving.”


	21. Explanations and Explications

"What do you want to know?"  
  
Harry knew he was more relaxed than he would have been before the meal they'd just had. It was _enormous,_ and while he didn't want to act like Malfoy luxury was seducing him, it was hard to hide his appreciation. He might not always eat a lot, but he liked having the option, for many reasons.  
  
And this time, the meal had contained so many different sauces that he'd been tempted into eating more than usual just because he wanted to taste different combinations. And now his mouth was surrounded by a small circle of red and yellow, and Malfoy was looking at him with more than a faint smile as the house-elves cleared the dishes away.  
  
Harry coughed and reached for a napkin, sponging half-heartedly at the circle. He suspected that at least some of it would stay there.  
  
"Let it stay," Malfoy said softly, maybe picking up on some of his thoughts through the bond. "I enjoy it when you look well-fed."  
  
Harry shrugged awkwardly and left the napkin on the table. "Anyway, what did you want to know?"  
  
Malfoy's wings opened as he leaned over the table. He had obviously had them long enough to be aware of their movements, because even though Harry thought he came _close_ to doing so, he didn't actually knock any of the dishes off the long dining room table. "I want to know why your friends seem so intent on you keeping your temper. It's not advice I would have expected them to give you."  
  
Harry stared at him. "Even though Hermione's more politically astute than I am?"  
  
"Granger is more knowledgeable, but that's not the same thing as politically-minded." Malfoy held out a hand as if his purpose was to let it wander among the dishes and pots, but he ended up with it near one of Harry's. Harry turned his hand to take it. "I would have expected her to value honesty over anything else. And sometimes, it would be more honest to lose your temper."  
  
"But it would also mean that I'd alienate people." Harry shook his head. "She saw--she saw what happened when I lost my temper, once before."  
  
"With who?" Malfoy was once again focused on him as if he was the center of the universe.  
  
It was flattering. And so _tempting,_ sometimes. Harry thought that he might believe himself the center of the universe if he let Malfoy look at him like that all the time. It was like the Malfoy luxury, the Malfoy food. He might let go and enjoy it once in a while, but most times, he had to be on guard against it, or he would start acting stupidly.  
  
"The woman who cast the Pain Geis on me the last time," he said.  
  
"You never did make it clear who that was, or what the circumstances were." Malfoy's voice had gone quiet and direct, and his eyes were full of a savage, clear light as he focused them on Harry's face.  
  
Harry sighed a little. "I know. That's because I'm not proud of my reaction. And because I thought you might try to take revenge on her," he added, as the vast wings spread and Malfoy's arse hovered above his chair.  
  
Malfoy fluttered the outer tips of his wings, moving them like fingers. Harry blinked. He hadn't known a Veela could do that.  
  
"She's still alive?" Malfoy whispered dangerously. "And free? I would have thought the Ministry would at least have imprisoned her for damaging their precious Savior."  
  
Harry glared at him before he could stop himself. "Could you not call me that, please?" he asked, knowing that his teeth were gritted, and not much caring. "I'd rather not be continually reminded of it."  
  
"All right," said Malfoy. "But tell me why she didn't receive a prison sentence or a curse from an Auror."  
  
"Because what I did to her was considered punishment enough."  
  
Malfoy paused, his head tilting to the side as if he was an owl considering an offered treat. Harry relaxed, although he did remind himself that the owl wouldn't try to rip someone's face off for insulting him.  
  
"That sounds more interesting," Malfoy decided after a moment. "Tell me what that was."  
  
Harry sighed, although not because he was going to refuse. He just didn't like remembering this. "I was coming through the Atrium, and I was speaking to Kingsley about methods that we could use to encourage further Muggleborn employment in the Ministry. The Pain Geis hit me from behind. I didn't know what it was, and I screamed. I was screaming so loud at first that I didn't even hear her voice whispering in my head."  
  
Malfoy's eyes were as wide as though Harry was telling him the most exciting story he'd ever heard. "What did Shacklebolt do?"  
  
"Turned around and tried to help me, but the spell wasn't coming from anywhere obvious." Harry shook his head. "We found out later that she was hiding under a Disillusionment Charm, behind the Fountain. And then we were trying to get the spell to stop, so neither of us thought as much about where she was hiding."  
  
"I would have taken to the air and found her."  
  
Harry nodded. "Yes, someone with wings could have been useful." That made Malfoy preen absurdly, but Harry found he didn't mind. He smiled for a minute before he had to continue the story.  
  
"So, I threw the Pain Geis off the same way I did with Maundy, although it took longer. Meanwhile, some Aurors came running, and they did find her, after they realized casting _Finite Incatatem_ at me wouldn't work."  
  
"That many Aurors casting the spell at you, and the Pain Geis still continued?" Malfoy interrupted. "I wouldn't have thought there were many spells that could withstand that much magic."  
  
Harry shrugged. "The strength of the Pain Geis depends in part on how much the person casting it hates the target. She hated me, the same way Maundy did, so it didn't end."  
  
"Who was she?" Malfoy's wings almost stood on end, it seemed, and swayed back and forth like reeds in a strong wind. "What did she hate you for?"  
  
Harry considered him carefully. "Are you going to go off and kill her if I give you enough information to identify her?"  
  
Malfoy gave him a blank glance that told Harry the truth. He shook his head wearily. "It doesn't matter that much," he said. "What matters is that she blamed me for something that wasn't my fault, something during the war that she was sure I could have prevented."  
  
Malfoy made a rough noise, a cross between a purr and a growl. "What did you do to her? Tell me in detail," he added, when Harry hesitated.  
  
Harry grimaced. "The worst thing is that I didn't _mean_ to do it. If I was facing a Death Eater and I wanted to punish them for what they'd done to me or friends of mine, that would be one thing. But I just wanted the pain to stop, and I lashed out with my magic. The way I did the time I inflated my aunt."  
  
"Another story I would like to hear." Malfoy looked at him with intense, glittering eyes, but they weren't any more intense than most humans' would be, Harry thought, or than Hermione's had been when she stressed to him how he had to keep his temper. "For now, though, you're telling me this one."  
  
Harry swallowed and nodded. He wondered what reaction he was looking for from Malfoy, _really_ looking for. Did he want him to be disgusted, because that would at least keep him from seeking out Harry's attacker and punishing her, or did he want him to be thrilled, because that would justify Harry's retaliation to Harry and soothe his guilt?  
  
He didn't know, and Malfoy was waiting, which in the end just meant that he explained what had happened without trying to conceal or elaborate anything.  
  
"I reached out and grabbed hold of her left foot with my magic." Harry kept his eyes fixed on the tablecloth. Just like he didn't know what reaction he wanted from Malfoy, he didn't know what expression he wanted to see on his face when he said this. "I don't know why. Maybe it was the part closest to me. Maybe--"  
  
"Harry. Stop delaying."  
  
"You're right." Harry clenched his hands, then started when warm fingers curled around his. He'd almost forgotten that Malfoy was holding one of his hands, after all. "I started to turn her inside out. _Everything_ inside out. The foot--her foot was turning into this sock of skin with all the flesh on the inside pointing outside, and you could see the bones mashed in there, except they were all pointing the wrong way. And the ripple was going up her leg, all the way to her hip, and it was turning into something that wasn't even _recognizable._ The Aurors said later they don't know any spell that could have done that. It was horrible."  
  
Malfoy said nothing, but only watched him with wide, still eyes. Then he breathed, "How is it that I never heard anything about this?"  
  
Harry shrugged, still remembering the sight of the woman being turned inside out, the horror in Hermione's eyes as she watched, and how strangely satisfied he had felt. He had kept his temper since then because it would cause political chaos if he didn't, but on the other hand, the satisfaction frightened him. He didn't want to feel that again, and he wouldn't if he could manage to keep the anger at bay.  
  
"That's not an answer."  
  
Harry returned to himself, and replied, "The people on the scene were all Aurors or other high-rankers in the Ministry. They agreed that it would be--useless to publicize it. She'd already had her punishment. If someone thought the Boy-Who-Lived could be attacked, even from hiding, they might feel less safe. And they'd have to drag my name through the mud at least a little bit if they found out what I'd done."  
  
"You didn't kill her. She's still alive." Malfoy's fingers tapped his knuckles as if he was urging Harry to pay attention to that.  
  
Harry nodded reluctantly. "But her foot is still like that. They got me to stop before it could get too far up her leg, and I even managed to reverse it a little. But I couldn't turn her foot back to normal, and no one else could, either."  
  
Malfoy was still, except for his eyes, which flicked swiftly between Harry's face and his hand as if he thought Harry was hiding something else from him. Then he asked, with a softness that was in itself frightening, "You think that she didn't deserve it?"  
  
"Part of me thinks she did," said Harry. "But the rest...I can't go around turning people inside out because they attacked me. It's too horrible. I could defend myself if someone used a deadly spell against me, but--"  
  
"That's what you _did_."  
  
"The Pain Geis isn't deadly, though," Harry insisted. He felt weirdly as though he was arguing against himself, because Malfoy spoke all the words he would have _liked_ to believe and didn't dare, in case that led to him excusing himself for other horrible things. "You saw that with Maundy. The worst I got was a bruise. And because of my resistance to the Imperius Curse, I can throw it off better than usual. My response was disproportionate."  
  
"There speaks Granger," Malfoy muttered, shaking his head. "You suffered, and while other people might be horrified by someone turning someone else inside out, they could also excuse it under the code of self-defense. Why can't _you_ be excused? Why were the Aurors so terrified that they had to keep this all a deadly secret, when they wouldn't have done that for anyone else?"  
  
"Stop asking those questions," Harry snapped. "Because this time, _you_ know the answer. You tell me."  
  
For a moment that was more charged than Harry had thought it could be, they looked each other in the eye, and then Malfoy nodded and spoke in a soft voice, like a child reciting a lesson. "You're the Boy-Who-Lived. It would cause too much panic, or too much gossip, or _something,_ if you were known to do that."  
  
"That's it," Harry agreed, massaging the back of his neck. "It's not the power that would panic people. It's my temper."  
  
"And that's why your friend told you to keep your temper," said Malfoy. "The _real_ reason." He hesitated, as if he didn't know what to say, and Harry let the silence lengthen. Then Malfoy whispered, "Why didn't you tell me that before?"  
  
"I didn't trust you enough," Harry said. "And it's not something I'm proud of." He waited one more moment, but when Malfoy said nothing, decided that maybe he could trust him with something else, too. "Or maybe I'm too proud of it. I did it once before. There's the possibility that I might do it again."  
  
*  
 _  
Idiots. If you have someone who's powerful and liable to get that angry about threats to him, you teach him ways to handle his anger and his power, not just forbid him to express either one and then get upset when he does._  
  
But Draco wasn't Harry, and he wasn't Granger. He would have given Harry better advice if he'd been around at the time, but he hadn't. Which meant all he could do now was give him the advice that might help Harry live with what he'd done.  
  
(Not that Draco thought he needed to feel guilt. But that sort of advice would only push Harry further away from him, because even if Harry hadn't felt guilt, he would have _thought_ he should).  
  
"What helps best when you're angry?" he asked as soothingly as he could. "Doing something that works it off, or burying yourself in work, or playing Quidditch, or what?"  
  
Harry looked at him with his mouth slightly open. _Am I really the first one to ask him that?_ Draco thought, and his chest ached with uncomfortable pity, which wasn't something he had wanted to feel about his mate. _Or at least the first one who realized that he needed to be asked? He isn't the Chosen One, he isn't this statue who only feels appropriate things. You'd think most of his handlers would have realized that by now._  
  
"It used to be flying," said Harry, and rubbed the back of his neck. "Lately, it's the peace process."  
  
Draco snorted. "Really? That _relaxes_ you?"  
  
In seconds, Harry was pulling back his shoulders as if they were wings, all ready to breathe and snort fire. "Yes! Why not? It demands a lot of concentration, and that's one way of working off anger, you just keep working and working until you forget that you were ever angry with someone."  
  
Draco blinked, wondering when Harry had learned that, or learned to work like that. From what Draco had seen at Hogwarts, Harry didn't pay that much attention to his work in-class.  
  
But it was probably something else Draco couldn't ask about until Harry volunteered it, so he bridled his impatience and said, "All right. Then use your anger to tackle something large when you feel it. Plans you've been putting off. Or write one of those letters that feels _so good_ to write but which you'd never send, and then tear it up. _Something_ that can relax you."  
  
"Even if I'm right in front of someone else and get angry at them?" Harry eyed him. "I can't see them waiting while I tell them that I have to go write a letter, and I'll be back in a half an hour or so."  
  
Draco snorted. "No. But then you can hold your breath or use whatever techniques you use now to subdue your temper, and write the letter or do something else later." He caught Harry's other hand. "What matters is that you need to express your temper somehow, not just shove down the anger and hope that it won't explode. I think it will. And it'll make what you did to the woman in the Atrium look small."  
  
Harry hunched as if he had wings of his own that could shield him. Draco was glad he didn't. He brought his own forwards and wrapped Harry in them, and Harry sighed and bowed his head.   
  
"It's normal to be angry," Draco reminded him, hoping that his voice was neutral and that he didn't sound as irritated with Granger's stupid advice as he really was. He would need to get along with Harry's friends. "It's _not_ normal to be the perfect hero who never is. And what you did to that woman is normal."  
  
Harry eyed him from beneath his fringe. "Really."  
  
"Really," said Draco. "For someone who has the power and who's suffered some of the same sorts of things that you have? There are stories of Merlin doing it. And one of my ancestors, Augustus Malfoy, when he lost his temper at--a rival." It didn't seem diplomatic right now to mention that that rival had been a Weasley. "I don't know everything you've suffered, but I know it's been enough."  
  
Harry closed his eyes, then nodded sharply. "Thanks," he said. "I might--it's probably better if I believe that I can express my anger sometimes than never, and then have something else like that happen again."  
  
"Exactly," said Draco. "An explosion would set your peace process back further than a few sarcastic remarks."  
  
Harry opened his eyes with a deep glow in them that told Draco he'd struck home. For whatever reason, Harry cared that much about the peace process.   
  
"Thank you," Harry said. "That makes so much sense. I can't believe I didn't think of that on my own."  
  
"Leave the common sense to your Veela mate," said Draco. "You concentrate on being a good politician. I can't do that."  
  
"It sounds like you could," Harry said, cocking his head curiously.  
  
Draco shook his head. "Maybe later. For right now, what matters to me, for good or evil, is you."  
  
The way Harry flushed was delicious. The way he gently pulled his hands back, less so, but Draco had accepted by now that he couldn't have whatever he wanted exactly when he wanted it. If he could make Harry more comfortable and at peace with himself, that was a worthy goal in itself, whether or not it strengthened the bond.


	22. Challenges and Choices

Harry's post had the usual communications from Hermione that morning, letters relating to the opening of Hogwarts, letters from some of the Muggleborns he was trying to persuade to come back to the wizarding world and some of the pure-bloods who were thinking about allying with the peace effort--  
  
And a blood-red scroll sealed with a black lion's face that Harry didn't recognize. He couldn't mistake the dark aura that hung around it, though, almost palpable. The instant it landed on the table, he flinched back, and Draco's wings shuddered and beat down to his sides, as his hisses filled the room.  
  
"I think it's all right," Harry said, warily, although he didn't manage to take his gaze from the scroll. He wondered why whoever it was had chosen a lion's head when a lion was also the emblem of Gryffindor. Were they Gryffindors who didn't think that Harry was doing a good enough job with the peace effort? Not representing the ideals of his House well enough?  
  
 _In that case, they can sod off,_ Harry thought, as he cast a few spells that would make the scroll safe enough to touch. _I never claimed to be acting for all Gryffindors, and it's their fault if they think I am._  
  
"Don't touch it," Draco said, when Harry reached for it.  
  
Harry felt a shudder travel through him. He suspected a normal submissive mate would have stopped immediately at that order, but he kept his hand moving calmly, landing on the scroll. His spells had blown away the dark aura, and while the seal still felt cold under his hand, that could easily have been because of the air at the height the owl had carried it.  
  
"Didn't you hear me?" Draco was arching his neck with the image of a beak outlining his nose in flickering radiance.  
  
Harry met him stare for stare, until Draco shifted and looked down at his hands. "Yeah," Harry said shortly. "I just didn't consider it worth obeying."  
  
Draco opened his mouth as if he would disagree, then nodded and said, "Right. I forget sometimes."  
  
 _It's not worth dwelling on further,_ Harry thought, and cracked open the seal. The last faint aura of menace dissipated the moment he did. Harry blinked. He wondered if the spell to make it seem dangerous had been implanted in the seal itself. And if so, why? They had to know he'd break the lion's face to open the scroll.  
  
 _Did they maybe mean to make it hurt more because I'd be opening something that seemed hostile to me and symbolized my Hogwarts House?_  
  
Harry had to smile, although he suspected, from the way Draco chirped in curiosity, that the smile wasn't nice. He thought he knew who this was from, who would think that way, and sure enough, the handwriting on the scroll was the exact replica of the handwriting on the letter that Tamara Maundy had used to accept his invitation to the meeting at the Leaky Cauldron.  
  
 _To Harry Potter, if he is not a coward,_  
  
 _This scroll is under the Aegis of the Order of the Dark Lion, a group that I have helped found. As you might notice from the name, the Order includes various Gryffindors as well as the Slytherins that you seem so eager to condemn._  
  
Harry's smile widened further. _This ought to be good._  
  
 _The Order of the Dark Lion is registered with the Ministry as having Duel Authority, which means that a member may issue a challenge to duel to someone who is not a member of the Order, but is politically prominent and has opposed that Order member in the past. I fit the one criterion, and you the other. You will meet me for a duel on the 23rd at Hogwarts, near the tomb of the man you so revere, at noon, unless you are a coward._  
  
Maundy had signed her name with a flourish that Harry almost had to admire.  
  
He became aware of a low noise behind him, going on and on, bubbling, until it sounded as though someone was boiling a whole bathtub full of water. When he turned around, he discovered it was Malfoy, hovering behind him and beating his wings. It wasn't enough to make him rise from the ground, only cause a small breeze that fanned Harry's own hair, but he knew what it was about.  
  
"What do you know about Duel Authority?" Harry asked calmly. It was something he only knew about from what little Maundy had explained, but Malfoy had probably grown up quoting the books about it.  
  
Malfoy's feet touched the ground fully again, and he folded his wings back. "It's a sort of dueling code that was meant to tame blood feuds," he said. His voice was low and neutral, but Harry noticed that he was carefully looking away from the letter. "Instead of having them go on and on, the feud would be settled by a single duel. Single combat."  
  
"Is it to the death?" Harry asked, and this time handed the letter over. If Malfoy ripped it up, he remembered enough of it that it wouldn't matter. "What about when someone sends a challenge through an organization they're part of?"  
  
"The Dark _Lion_ ," said Malfoy, as though that name was a personal insult to Harry. Harry thought that was part of it, but he also thought Maundy wasn't that petty. Quite, anyway. "Yes. The duel is to the death. Unless..." His voice trailed off, and he blinked at Harry. "How good are you at dueling?"  
  
"I've barely done any formal dueling," said Harry, frowning as he considered. "The last time was during my fourth year."  
  
"I don't remember you dueling anyone during _our_ fourth year."  
  
The emphasis wasn't subtle, but Harry reckoned he deserved it for forgetting that Draco had shared that year at Hogwarts with him. He gave Draco a distracted smile. "I was thinking of the duel that I fought with Voldemort in the graveyard where he came back. I didn't have much chance to do anything before our wands locked and the spirits of the dead came out of his wand."  
  
Malfoy was silent--too profoundly silent. "What?" Harry added. "You know that story. I told the particulars of it already."   
  
"It's simply," said Malfoy, and paused to draw in a breath before he continued, although Harry doubted those two words had exhausted his store of air, "that you've lived the sort of life where that sentence isn't remarkable at all."  
  
Harry smiled. He supposed he could see the humor when Malfoy phrased that way. "So. I don't know the rules other than that the duelers face each other within a certain defined area and they bow at the start."  
  
"There are other things that Maundy will probably try to make part of the traditions, since she won't expect you to be familiar with them." Malfoy's face was blank, but Harry thought he was feeling a sort of tiny spark, bubbling up and down in his blood, and in his voice no matter how much he was trying to keep it out. "For example, the person who issues the challenge gets to choose the kinds of spells that can be used in the combat."  
  
Harry whistled. "All she has to do is make it certain kinds of curses, and I'm doomed to lose for sure."  
  
"You sound _cheerful_ about this." Malfoy peered at him.  
  
"So do you," Harry pointed out, but shook his head when Malfoy gave him a pointed look. "It's just that having someone try to kill me with spells is so _straightforward_ compared to the kinds of tangles that I get into with these politics. It's refreshing."  
  
Malfoy looked as though he was trying to decide whether to pursue that line of reasoning, but in the end, he shrugged and said, "She can only choose a certain _kind_ of spell, not certain spells by name. And she can't use Dark Arts, not when it's formal like this and from an organization registered with the Ministry."  
  
"What do I get to choose?" Harry asked, looking back at the letter. "It looks like she's chosen the time and the place, and she gets to choose the weapons."  
  
"You get to choose what kind of duel it is," said Malfoy, and his wings spread and flapped once, hard, so that he bounced lightly into the air to the height of the table. "It's called the stake. Usually, these duels are to the death, but you can choose first blood, or defeat after a certain spell, or something else, and the forfeit that the loser has to pay. So you can choose first blood and something that would make Maundy agree to leave your political effort alone, for example. Or some other forfeit."  
  
"If I win." Harry tapped the letter thoughtfully.  
  
Malfoy nodded. "If you win. But I think you will, or I'd be a lot more frantic about this."  
  
Harry spent a moment looking at him. "It must be hard on you, mated to someone who's always in danger," he said, as neutrally as he could.  
  
"It's a lot harder than I expected," Malfoy said. "But I didn't expect you." He paused, then gave a small shrug and shook his head. "I had my chance to do something else, even if that was just never acknowledging you and dying. I chose to keep going."  
  
That attitude was familiar enough that Harry felt his heart give a single, heavy beat in his chest. He reached out, took Malfoy's hand, and squeezed it once.   
  
He didn't release it when the squeeze was done, either. He turned back to the letter. "Help me decide what the stakes are?"  
  
Malfoy smiled.  
  
*  
  
Draco looked back and forth carefully. They were standing on the grass in front of Dumbledore's tomb, the soft glow in the white stone adding to the wash of faint sunlight. The sky threatened rain and sun at the same time, the clouds a brilliant pale grey with the light always darting away behind them again. Draco wasn't sure which to wish for. On the one hand, rain might make the grass muddy and make Harry slip. But sun could dazzle him at the wrong moment and let Maundy get in a killing blow.  
  
Harry got to choose first blood, of course, which was what they'd agreed on. But Draco wouldn't put it past Maundy to try and kill Harry anyway. She might accept the Azkaban term in exchange for stopping Harry's peace process and hushing up the knowledge that her family had descended from Muggles.  
  
Draco could remember, if he thought about it, that at one point of his life he might have felt the same way. It was hard to remember being there emotionally, though. Surely he wouldn't have been that _stupid_?  
  
(Not that he would discuss it with Harry, either. It was hard enough to know how Harry would react in discussions of the present. The past was guaranteed to be explosive).  
  
Maundy wasn't here yet, which was as Draco had expected. She had made things more dramatic in the first place by issuing a challenge like this; she would put off as long as possible the moment of her entrance.  
  
But she couldn't wait past noon without forfeiting her own challenge, and soon Draco heard the creak of harness he had half-expected. A prancing flying horse landed near the lake, a handsome bay with a flowing black mane and tail. Draco shook his head. There was value in the traditions Maundy was fighting to defend, of course, but in other ways, it made someone far too _predictable_.  
  
"Hello," Harry said, as he watched other people land behind her. The only people he had brought were Draco and Granger and Weasley, who remained tense with tight misery behind Draco. They had been talking, but had stopped the instant they saw Maundy and the others arrive. "Is she going to fight on horseback? Can I demand my broom?" His eyes were bright.  
  
"Technically, she could mandate that you fight on foot while she was flying," said Draco, although he didn't take his eyes from Maundy as she trotted towards them. He didn't think she was actually going to do that. He thought she would want the satisfaction of killing Harry--or trying to kill him--up close and personal.  
  
"But then I could say that the first person to fall down is the loser, right?" Harry tilted his head at Draco as he nodded. Draco wondered if he knew how inexpressibly cute he was when he did that. "Why do so many advantages go to the person who makes the challenge?"  
  
"Because the ancient pure-bloods who framed the rules thought that the person who made the challenge first showed more honor," Draco murmured, watching critically as Maundy came to a stop next to the far edge of the tomb. Her horse's wings flared dramatically, white against the bay coat. _Striking,_ Draco thought, and the audience that had inevitably gathered would remember that. "To them should go the extra advantages to celebrate their courage."  
  
"It's _courage_ she wants, is it?"  
  
Draco glanced quickly at Harry. Harry's eyes were so bright that it was nearly painful to look at them--certainly painful to think about the duel that might close them forever. Draco answered cautiously. "I doubt she's thinking about that right now. She wants to use this duel to end your career as a political opponent."  
  
Harry didn't answer, but watched Maundy ride up to them with a faint smile. Draco winced a little as he turned around to face Maundy, too. He hoped that Harry knew what he was doing, and wasn't about to abandon the plan that he and Draco had worked on together.  
  
"Potter." Maundy stared down at Harry from the back of her horse and didn't get off to bow, which Draco knew was a major breach of etiquette when it came to duels. If you challenged someone to a formal contest like this, you were supposed to show them respect for appearing. But Harry only stared up at Maundy, and in a moment, she gave up the attempt to intimidate him and spoke more briskly. "I will tell you my choice of weapons in a moment. In the meantime, you have only to confirm that it is to the death--"  
  
"But it isn't to the death," said Harry cheerfully.   
  
Maundy's teeth clicked shut, and she gave Harry a blank look that made Draco hold back a chuckle. She should have guessed that. That she hadn't was only another sign that her hatred of Harry and what Granger's research had discovered was blinding her to the obvious. Of course Harry wouldn't want to kill another wizard when one of his main concerns in the speeches he gave was the small size of the wizarding community and how they had to get along instead of tearing each other apart.  
  
"What is it, then?" Maundy asked, when she could speak.  
  
Harry twitched a shoulder at Draco. "My mate explained to me that I could tell you what my stake is after you've explained the weapons. I can't be forced into giving up my one advantage until I understand all of yours."  
  
Draco nodded vigorously. Stating the weapons, the place, the time, or the stake was a formal maneuver that couldn't be taken back once the wizard had said it. Maundy couldn't have changed the time or place of the duel once she had sent the scroll to Harry. And the rules said that Maundy should now state weapons.  
  
Maundy's face was ugly as she stared at Harry. Then she placed her hand on her horse's neck and said, "I choose proxies."  
  
"What does that mean, please?" Harry looked as innocent as though he hadn't been instructed in all the duel rules. Draco smiled, mostly because the men and women who had come with Maundy--all of them with that black lion's head on their robes--had started whispering to each other, watching Harry and Maundy narrowly.   
  
"It means that neither you nor I will fight directly." Maundy slid off her winged horse at last and reached for a padlocked black iron box on the back of the saddle. Draco shifted, unable to help himself. He could sense a throb of magic from inside that box that worried him.  
  
Maundy gave him a nasty smile and opened the box. The thing inside whirred out and sat on her shoulder with a nose like several clocks chiming.  
  
It was a dragon, Draco saw, a dragon formed of metal and jewels. This one was dappled in silver and steel all over. The silver would give it some magical protection, and the steel would protect some of the more delicate spells inside it, making it work. Draco knew, vaguely, how to create such creatures, but they required anchoring the spells inside metallic circles and wheels that served as substitutes for internal organs. He had never really studied how to make them.   
  
This one also had rubies for eyes, rubies that immediately locked onto Harry and blazed with something like Maundy's hatred. The dragon crouched for a moment.  
  
"Oh," said Harry, nodding wisely. "Like the dragon that you used to attack me in the Leaky Cauldron."  
  
That made even more murmuring rise among Maundy's companions. Draco smiled blandly. He thought they probably hadn't known about _that_. Not Maundy's finest moment, that one.  
  
But Maundy didn't look at all concerned. "Yes. Only tougher. Much tougher." Her eyes shone, and she touched the dragon's shoulder. "Now. You must choose someone to fight for you. You cannot fight yourself."  
  
"Or use magic to assist the one I choose to fight for me, of course," Harry muttered, sounding deep in thought.  
  
"Yes, exactly," said Maundy, and looked around as if she thought Harry would hand Weasley a broom and tell him to get on it.  
  
Instead, Harry turned to Draco. "I choose my Veela mate," he said. "Draco."  
  
Draco felt his wings warm and twitch. He had wanted Harry to choose him, of course, and maybe it was inevitable, since he was the one who had destroyed the dragon at the last meeting. But there was still something special about Harry's unconstrained choice.  
  
Maundy was still a second, and then she looked back and forth from one of their faces to the other. "And the stake?" she asked.  
  
"The duel continues until one of them touches the ground," said Harry. "The ground only, not trees. And if you lose, you withdraw from politics and cease opposing me." He paused a second. "If I lose, then I'll pull the knowledge about your family and keep it from being published or referred to again."  
  
Maundy was wrestling in silence with that one, Draco thought. At last, she nodded. She probably knew that pressing Harry to make his forfeit higher would make him refuse, and then she would look like the worse one (as if she wasn't already) for flouting the rules of the duel.  
  
"Up," said Maundy, and unleashed the dragon from her shoulder. It promptly soared until it was a dot in the sky.  
  
Borne up by Harry's faith and choice more than by the wind, Draco unfurled his wings and took off after it.   
  



	23. Dragons and Dread

Draco beat his wings steadily, knowing he had to gain height and get away from any of the trees on the ground. Their branches would tangle his wings, and he would be much less effective fighting against a dragon that might breathe fire if he was around wood.  
  
 _Might_ breathe fire.  
  
He knew it was hard to fight created animals, much less created animals that he didn’t know anything about. But there were certain things he could do as a dominant Veela fighting to protect his mate that he couldn’t have done if he was merely struggling for his own survival.  
  
He broke into a patch of clear sky and spun around with his heart singing within him and his face already flickering. Draco wondered for a moment if his mouth and nose would completely transform into a beak, the way he had sometimes seen with Veela who were born with their full magic and didn’t need to mature into acquiring wings. That transformation might be painful, and the pain could distract him.  
  
The pain was  _not_ going to distract him, not when he had a mate to defend.  
  
He focused on the dragon, still a speck above him, and spread his wings. In seconds, he was floating motionless in the air, not beating his wings, not rising and falling. He could feel the wind around him tingling and stirring with his magic.   
  
The dragon seemed to decide Draco was vulnerable now that he was holding still. Or maybe the will of its creator wouldn’t let it hesitate any longer. It came diving at him, straight down from the clouds, aimed at the top of Draco’s head like an arrow.  
  
Draco waited for it. He could have circled away from it, he could have resisted, but it needed to come close enough that he could embrace it. He was breathing, he knew that, but it seemed to him that his breathing and blood were suspended like his body in the air. He looked at the dragon, and he couldn’t look away.  
  
Now it was close enough that Draco could make out its eyes. It opened its flat jaws and snorted out fire and chaos. Yes, it could breathe fire, and if the flames touched his feathers, Draco knew the pain he would suffer as his wings burned.  
  
The dragon came within the circle of his wings, and Draco acted.  
  
When he swept his wings forwards, the magic around him stirred and charged. Draco smiled. He was doing this for his mate. All he had to do was think about Harry, and the fire went out, and the dragon was left hanging in midair looking foolish. It opened its mouth as if it was going to bite him, and Draco hit it.  
  
The dragon’s body was solid, thick with metal and jewels, but it was a lot smaller than Draco, small enough to sit on his shoulder. He hit it and bowled it over and over, so that he had to flap harder, once he was flying again, to catch up with it. But the magic that stirred and tingled in the air still moved with him, and it closed around the dragon when Draco was close enough to surround it with his wings once more.  
  
Draco thought of what that fire would have done to Harry, if Maundy had set the dragon on Harry and fled. He thought about Harry’s hair catching on fire and Harry’s voice crying out in pain.  
  
Draco’s throat swelled. He opened a mouth that wasn’t a beak, but  _did_ feel more sharp and pointed than normal, and screamed.  
  
The dragon jerked and jolted to the side. Draco shrieked again, and something else inside it, some delicate organ made of silver or crystal or diamonds, shattered in sympathy with his note. The dragon’s left wing was barely flapping now, and it listed in a circle, before stretching out its claws and trying to dive at him.  
  
Draco didn’t bother screeching this time. He wanted to get his hands on an artifact that Maundy had made, and actually rend it to pieces. The one he had destroyed at the meeting in the Leaky Cauldron hardly counted.  
  
When he grabbed the dragon, it promptly sank its claws into his arms in retaliation. Draco ignored that. He brought up his legs and smashed them into the dragon’s hind legs, and then he was flying upside-down, drawing the dragon in to his chest, his mouth open and his panting filling the small, intense heated space between their wings.  
  
The dragon shrieked itself, hard enough to bring tears to Draco’s eyes. But he was still defending his mate, and he could ignore that easily enough.  
  
He slammed his foot into the dragon’s belly. The magic flowing through him made him strong enough to dent the silver, and that dent crashed into something else sensitive inside the dragon. Draco heard what sounded like glass breaking, and the dragon’s other wing stopped working.  
  
Draco smiled. Now all he had to was drop the bloody thing, and it would fall, and the condition of whoever touched the ground first losing the duel would be fulfilled.  
  
But when he tried to let the dragon go, he found its claws had sunken deep into his flesh. And it leaned near him and opened its mouth, and Draco wasn’t sure that he still had enough magic left to stop its fire.  
  
It wasn’t fire it breathed, though. Instead, its long, metallic forked tongue extended, and it spat a hard wash of yellow liquid into Draco’s face. Draco jerked his head back, but he wasn’t in time to prevent the liquid from soaking his skin and dripping into his mouth.  
  
Immediately, it began to burn. Draco screamed. There was nothing of the Veela’s menacing shriek left in that sound, as much as he wished there was. This felt like poison, and he could feel his throat already swelling again, this time shut.  
  
The dragon was trying to crawl up his chest towards his eyes, probably so it could spit the poison again. Draco whirled around and thrust his hand into its mouth, reaching straight down and into the innards.  
  
In seconds, the dragon was struggling madly against him, and Draco was flying sideways, struggling to find something that would—he didn’t know. It was unlikely that Maundy had given her dragon an antidote against its own poison, but that was what Draco wanted to find.  
  
Or, at least, he would wrench something vital inside the dragon out and make Maundy pay for his death by destroying her creation.  
  
*  
  
One of the first things that Harry had done was cast a spell that would sharpen his sight and let him see most of what was happening hundreds of meters above his head. He noticed Maundy had cast the same spell, but she didn’t say anything about his use of it, even to torment him. She simply kept her head tilted back, the way Harry did.  
  
Harry saw the moment when the dragon began its dive towards Malfoy, and he swore softly as Malfoy just hung there, awaiting it. What did the idiot think he was  _doing_?  
  
“Perhaps worried that your champion will lose?” Maundy asked in a calm voice, without taking her eyes from the fight.  
  
“It’s a proxy, not a champion, your idiocy said so,” Harry snapped back. He could feel a rustle and a stirring going through the people around him, and Ron and Hermione exchanging glances, but he couldn’t take his eyes from Malfoy any more than Maundy was about to take hers from her dragon, so he couldn’t see why.  
  
Maundy laughed. “When one is watching the creature that will conquer, it matters little what one calls it.”  
  
At that point, the dragon’s flames that Harry had been so worried about went out, and it began lurching about the sky. Harry laughed, a vicious sound that startled him. It felt like he hadn’t laughed like that in years. “You were saying?”   
  
Maundy didn’t reply, but from the corner of his eye, Harry saw her lips tighten. That was enough to content him as he watched Draco shriek and attack the dragon.  
  
The shriek made a few people wince and grab their ears, at least from their pained murmurs, but Harry heard it as a sweet sound. He shook his head, bemused. Was that a sign that his bond with Malfoy was changing, and Harry could be around him now without worrying about the painful sounds that he’d seen Veela make?  
  
If the bond was changing, then…  
  
He didn’t actually know what to make of that.  
  
The battle seemed to go well for a minute or so. Then the dragon got so close to Malfoy Harry couldn’t see what was happening, and he shifted around in place, leaning past Dumbledore’s tomb, trying to get closer, or as close as he could when he was standing on the bloody  _ground_.  
  
A second later, Malfoy screamed again. And this time, Harry didn’t need an expert on Veela to tell him that that sound was pure pain, without the echoes of sweetness or power that the first one had had.  
  
Harry’s hands were clenched so hard that he knew he’d broken some of his fingernails. The pain was distant, though, as he watched Malfoy flying in ungainly motions, all over the sky, jerking closer and closer to the ground.  
  
“That would be the poison, I suppose,” Maundy remarked.  
  
Harry snapped his gaze away from Malfoy for the first time since Malfoy had spread his wings. He stared at Maundy. She didn’t return his look, but a small, pleased smile lifted the corners of her mouth.  
  
“Poison?” Harry said. He took a step towards Maundy, but she shook her head and went on gazing into the sky as though what was happening up there was much more interesting than the vengeance that Harry had planned to take on her.  
  
“I suspect you should watch,” Maundy replied. “These may be the last minutes that you will see your lover alive. And,” she added, so softly that it sounded like the whisper of the dying, “I told you that you would pay for crossing me.”  
  
Harry turned away from her, trembling violently. No. Malfoy was more important than she was, more important than fighting or killing her, more important than his anger. He tilted his head back and tried to watch, telling himself that if Malfoy was really in trouble, then he would Summon a broom and go flying up to rescue him, rules of the duel be damned.  
  
*  
  
Draco could feel something thick and throbbing under his fingers, something that squished a little when he squeezed his hand down. He smiled and wrenched his hand sideways, feeling his breath cutting off, but not caring. He would crush the dragon’s heart, or the thing that stood in for it, and that would mean that Maundy would still lose. Draco would make sure her dragon’s corpse hit the ground first.  
  
That way, he would have died defending his mate. He could accept that. A Veela sometimes hoped to die like that, and it was probably more common in cases where their mate didn’t love them.  
  
Didn’t love them…didn’t want to bond with them…had some problem about bonding with them…Draco didn’t know which it was in Harry’s case, and anyway, it was getting harder and harder to think with the poison cutting his breath off…  
  
The dragon went motionless, nothing more than a hunk of metal clinging to Draco’s chest, the instant Draco tore the heart out of its chest. Draco concentrated intently so he could pull his arm out and shove the dragon away from him. It would fall. He only had to keep on the wing for a few more seconds.  
  
It turned out to not be even that. Draco was able to see the dragon fall into the trees and plummet past them to slam into the earth, but then his eyes crossed and shut. Black and dark red patches bloomed across his sight.  
  
He tried not to fight for his breath, tried to dip his wings in one final salute to Harry. That would be more dignified than simply dying fighting against suffocation.  
  
But he was still alive, and whether or not he was a Veela, whether or not he had a mate who loved him, he still had to breathe. Draco choked, and then he was fighting after all, his wings chopping the air. It didn’t matter, because the dragon had already fallen, but he  _wished_ —  
  
In seconds, someone grabbed him around the waist, and Harry’s voice whispered into his ear, “I don’t know if this will work, but you fought for me, and you would have  _died_ for me.  _Accio_ poison!”  
  
Draco spasmed as something seemed to stir deep inside him, the way the dragon’s inner organs had when he crushed them. He tried to gasp out and protest that Harry shouldn’t be here, but instead of words, a dark green liquid poured out of his open mouth. His throat hurt. He thrashed, and Harry reached out and restrained his wings.  
  
Draco opened his eyes. He was draped on his stomach over a broom—it must be a school broom from Hogwarts, from the looks of it, an old Comet—and Harry had one hand on his back and was waving his wand again.  
  
“ _Accio_ the rest of the poison!”  
  
Draco vomited. It hurt so much that he moaned, but the sound of the moan was lost in the sound of him emptying his stomach, he was sure. Harry kept one hand in the middle of his back, though, and murmured a response now and then, and Draco reminded himself of who he was and who he cared about, and went on trying to clear his stomach of the poison instead of begging for it to stop.  
  
Finally, nothing more was coming out, and Harry nodded. “There’s still some in your blood, but you aren’t struggling for breath, now,” he muttered. “I think we should take you down and get you to Madam Pomfrey. You should still be seen by someone who knows what they’re doing.” He laughed in what sounded like embarrassment. “Merlin knows that  _I_ don’t.”  
  
They began rapidly to descend, and Draco managed to turn his head slowly. “How did you get up here so quickly?” he asked, and then flinched. His voice was sharpened with bile, and he was sure he sounded horrible. “How did you know what to do?”  
  
“Maundy told me about the poison, and I Summoned a broom.” Harry’s eyes were bright when they met his eyes, the way they had been before the duel when he was thinking about dueling Maundy in flight. “I seem to be Summoning a lot of things today.”  
  
Draco shook his head in wonder and reached up with a shaking hand towards Harry’s cheek, although he didn’t make it, probably due to his weakness. “How did—why are you acting as if you care about me so much?”  
  
Harry paused and blinked, and Draco was immediately sorry for asking. He felt awful anyway, his head reeling and his throat and stomach aching, and he probably wouldn’t be able to appreciate the answer even if it was a favorable one, which it wouldn’t be. Harry hadn’t realized until now that he was acting more gently, and he would distance himself from Draco in an attempt to make this mate bond what he wanted it to be.  
  
Draco closed his eyes and waited for that moment.  
  
But instead, Harry whispered, “That must be what they were all gasping about,” as he steered the broom towards the castle.  
  
“What who was gasping about?” Draco winced a second later. He really should stop talking. His throat hurt so much that his head was starting to throb in sympathy with it.  
  
“I lost my temper with Maundy,” said Harry. “I said something that had actual life in it. And it was because I was so angry that it looked like you were just hovering in midair and about to lose your life.” There was a long pause when Draco could only feel the wind sliding past his ears and his own relentless hope. “It—I don’t know. I was angry with you before, when I threw you against the library wall. I don’t know why this time was different.”  
  
Draco shook his head and stayed silent. He knew what he hoped for, that seeing him in danger had made Harry realize he didn’t want to lose Draco, but he didn’t dare assume that was what had really happened and now things would change permanently.  
  
Draco still had no idea what had made their bond fail. If it was Harry’s past, then he didn’t think things would change until Harry spoke to him willingly about it. If it was related to the war, then probably Harry needed to succeed in his peace process or move further away from the war before he would feel ready to love Draco.  
  
And even then, Draco doubted the bond would be the same as any other Veela bond he had seen. Most dominants didn’t give up like he had done; they would at least fight their way back to their mate’s side. Most submissives didn’t come and rescue their dominants the way Harry had done with him.  
  
On the other hand, how had Draco been able to wield the special magic a dominant Veela could only use in the defense of their mates, if he wasn’t one?  
  
Draco sighed and shut his eyes. He didn’t know, and right now, thinking made his head hurt. He would like to yield and just let someone else care for him for a while.  
  
The last thing he felt was Harry’s hand rubbing soothing circles at the center of his back.


	24. Poisons and Patience

“Is  _all_ the poison out of him?” Harry asked. If he sounded ridiculous, he thought as Madam Pomfrey gave him a sideways glance and waved her wand again over Malfoy, then he could put up with that.   
  
He would put up with a lot, not to have Malfoy dead.  
  
“Most of it,” said Madam Pomfrey, after she’d spent a few minutes examining Malfoy so closely that Harry had to hold his breath the way he would if he was underwater. “Some of it got absorbed into his blood, and I’ll keep him overnight and make sure he’s not still suffering the effects of that.” She waved her wand again, and a flask of some dark green potion floated over to her. “This will keep him from suffering too much,” she added, as she poured the potion down Malfoy’s throat. “He’ll get the poison out through sweating, mostly, instead of having to vomit it up.”  
  
Harry nodded, his eyes on Malfoy’s still face. He didn’t think Malfoy was unconscious—sometimes he stirred and groaned, and he reached a hand towards Harry whenever Harry moved even a short distance away—but he was drifting near it. “What kind of poison was it?”  
  
“Oh, a conjured kind,” said Madam Pomfrey casually, and stepped back to consider Malfoy from what looked like another angle. “I see it often enough here when someone’s been playing silly buggers with Potions.”  
  
Harry had to grin. It was a nice reminder that some things were going on as usual at Hogwarts, or would be going on once students returned to the school in numbers. Right now, Madam Pomfrey and some professors were the only ones here on a permanent basis.  
  
Pomfrey gave him a close glance, then added, “There is one more thing.”  
  
“Yes?” Harry sat up. He had to wonder whether Maundy had added something more insidious than a potion that would infiltrate the bloodstream into her poison. It wouldn’t surprise him.  
  
“My magic can sense a bond when it’s in its first year of formation,” Pomfrey said carefully. “Veela bonds, wedding bonds, all sorts. After that, it usually slows and settles, and it’s hard to detect anymore. But this feels more like a broken limb than a settled bond.”  
  
Harry sighed. “Yeah. I’m afraid that’s my fault. I didn’t—I  _can’t_ be the kind of submissive mate that most dominant Veela would have, and I told him that. The bond hasn’t taken. Another Veela said that it looked tattered, and we can’t feel each other way we ought to be able to do.”  
  
“Have you considered methods that might help the bond settle?” Pomfrey asked gently.  
  
Harry shrugged at her. “I’ve tried to spend more time with him just talking about harmless things, and learning to trust him. But I  _can’t_ become the kind of kneeling, orders-taking submissive that he dreamed about. I care for him, I don’t want him to die, but there are things I can’t do. Even for him.”  
  
“Yet you care for him more than you did at the beginning,” said Pomfrey, and she hesitated for a long moment. Harry waited, since he knew she had something else she wanted to say. He had become good at telling when someone felt that way.   
  
“You remember that I treated you when you got that injury in the attack at the Ministry?” Pomfrey asked.  
  
“Which one?” Harry asked for a moment, before he remembered. There had been several attacks at the Ministry, mostly from people who were angry at him and still had the appropriate security clearance to be around him, but only one where Madam Pomfrey had treated him. “Oh, right. That one where you removed the ice darts from my chest.”  
  
Pomfrey nodded. “I remember thinking that you seemed very subdued, compared to the way I remembered you. Not even the warrior that I saw defeat You-Know-Who on that last day of the war. Fighters have to have some passion.”  
  
Harry shrugged a little. “I’ve poured my passion into the peace effort.”  
  
“Yes, and you hardly answered my questions and acted as though your wounds only mattered because they might mean that you couldn’t attend some bloody meeting that night,” said Pomfrey.  
  
Harry blinked at the transformation. Pomfrey seemed to have increased in size, and she put her hands on her hips and stared at him so sternly that it made Harry squirm.   
  
“It was a lot different from the way you’re acting now. Concerned about someone who could have been a burden to you. About something that’s not related to the peace process at all.” Pomfrey shook her head at him. “I think you should consider the possibility that the bond is changing you in some ways, awakening emotions that you’d locked away. I think you’re right that it will never turn you into the kind of natural submissive Mr. Malfoy wanted. But it might change you into someone he  _could_ want, not a submissive but someone else. Yourself.”  
  
She held Harry’s eyes for a second, and then turned around and said, “I need to go and get another potion that will prevent the sweating from hurting Mr. Malfoy too much. Excuse me.” She disappeared calmly into the Potions cupboard at the back of the hospital wing, as though she’d said nothing at all.  
  
Harry sat there with Malfoy’s hand in his, and his mind whirling.  
  
*  
  
Draco had to spend a large portion of the next day on his back, his wings stuck through a specially-designed mesh net at the bottom of the bed that let them dangle until the tips almost touched the floor. He didn’t like that. He also had to watch Harry leave his bedside at times, to speak with his friends or some of his fellow participants in the peace process or who knew who else. Draco felt his nature really only settle when Harry came back and sat down in the seat at his side again, and smiled at him.  
  
But at least he was awake for the most important visit: the one where Maundy came to concede the duel to Harry.  
  
Harry immediately stood up when she came into the hospital wing, and his face wasn’t the bland mask Draco was used to seeing when Harry was dealing with someone he wanted to involve in the peace process, even if he didn’t like them. He moved to stand a little in front of Draco, and his hand was on his wand. He didn’t take it off even when Maundy met his eyes and made a brief little gesture with one hand that Draco knew was appealing for someone to put away his weapon.  
  
“Harry,” Draco whispered, touching his back. Harry tensed, but didn’t turn. “She wants you to put your wand down.”  
  
There was a long moment that tilted on the edge of a knife-blade, and Draco knew Harry was seriously considering not doing it. In the end, he stepped out of the way, but he kept one sharp eye on Maundy all the way.   
  
 _If she does anything stupid,_ Draco thought, impressed in spite of himself,  _then she’s going to wish she hadn’t._  
  
And this…maybe Draco was indulging in wishful thinking, but he thought there was something different about the way Harry was moving and standing. The consideration didn’t seem to come from Harry’s usual calculation of minute political advantages. Draco thought he was thinking about something else.   
  
 _Me?_  
  
Harry sat down beside Draco, and took his hand again. Draco had to bite his lip hard, and not just because Harry was showing himself more willing to engage with Draco than ever before. He was sitting down when he should have accepted Maundy’s surrender standing. It was an insult that wouldn’t have meant a lot to Draco, but would have to his mother, and definitely to a pure-blood as starched as Maundy.  
  
For long moments, Maundy only stood there. Then she held out a steel dagger. Harry surged to his feet again.  
  
“This is a sign of the peace treaty,” said Maundy, her voice as bland as her face. “There is nothing that says I can harm you with it. In fact, it is enchanted so that I  _cannot_ harm you with it.”  
  
“Draco,” said Harry, and Draco’s heart leaped and thrilled so hard at the murmur of his first name that he almost didn’t pay attention to what Harry said next. “I read once that Veela can sense harm to their mates. Is that true?”  
  
“It depends on how present the threat is,” said Draco, wondering for a moment where Harry could have  _read_ that, and how come he hadn’t read about dominant and submissive mates in the same book. “I could sense that someone in a room had murderous thoughts towards you, but I couldn’t sense a threat from someone who was only daydreaming about how much more convenient it would be to have you out of the way.”  
  
Harry nodded. He had his blank political face on again, but the words that emerged from his mouth weren’t political at all. “Then just test that dagger for me, wouldn’t you.”  
  
Draco swallowed and reached out one hand, palm up, to accept the dagger. Maundy gave him a look of silent scorn and passed it over. Draco didn’t pay attention to that. He concentrated, instead, on the way that the metal pressed against his skin, and how it made his senses light up and flicker and spark, and nodded gravely in the end.  
  
“It could be threatening in the sense that someone else could use it to stab you,” he told Harry, and handed the blade back to Maundy. She was the one who had to give it to Harry, directly. “But she’s right about it being enchanted so  _she_ can’t use it that way.”  
  
Harry gave Maundy a smile that exhilarated Draco. Where  _had_ this defiant and stubborn risk-taker been hiding the rest of the time they were together? Where had he been hiding since Hogwarts, in fact? Draco shook his head to try to clear it.  
  
Maundy, luckily, was focused on Harry right then and didn’t pay enough attention to realize that Draco might have been distracted and thus not on-guard. She grimaced and handed Harry the blade, turning it as if she wouldn’t mind should some edge scratch him. “Your stakes are claimed,” she said. “I will withdraw from politics and cease opposing you.”  
  
Harry opened his mouth as if he would have liked to add something, but luckily, he seemed to know that was impossible, because he nodded instead and murmured, “They are claimed.”  
  
The steel blade glowed abruptly with a red tint that made Draco stare and hiss. But the sense of danger never grew any worse. This wasn’t real heat, only an enchantment of some sort that Maundy had added to her dagger to make it look more impressive at the moment of claiming.  
  
“Good,” said Maundy, and her gaze lingered for a moment on Harry’s face. “You acknowledged the rules of honor.”  
  
Harry was smarter than to think that was a congratulations of any sort. He waited, and Draco waited, bristling, with him. He would have put a hand on Harry’s shoulder to remind him that he didn’t stand alone, but he thought Maundy would take that as an announcement of vulnerability.  
  
Maundy, her face consumed with disgust and hatred that made it wrinkle hard, bent towards Harry and whispered, “But only the rules. Not the honor itself. I still hate you. I still wish you had never conducted the research that revealed any dirty blood in my family. The moment you slip and stray outside the arena of politics, where I can strike at you, then I plan to do so.”  
  
“Aren’t you a little stupid to  _tell_ me about it, then?” Harry asked, hardly moving his lips.  
  
Maundy whirled away from him and strode out of the hospital wing. Draco did put a hand on Harry’s shoulder, then, and drew him close. Harry remained on alert until the sound of Maundy’s footsteps faded, even to Draco’s enhanced senses.  
  
“You were magnificent,” Draco said, when he could listen to something other than the threat he thought was leaving.  
  
Harry started and turned to him. He flushed a second later. Draco watched in covert delight. He thought Harry was trying to tamp down some of the anger and other emotions that had flowed out of him when he was confronting Maundy, but it was very hard for him to do.  
  
“Um. You think so?” Harry scratched at the back of his neck and then shrugged and looked at the ground. “I don’t know. It—it makes me feel so uncertain, wondering if I’m going to turn her inside out any second.”  
  
“You were never near that,” Draco said. “I would have felt a threat, remember?”  
  
“Including a threat to her?” Harry looked frankly disbelieving, and Draco could understand why. It didn’t seem to chime at all with what Harry had read about the Veela, wherever he had read that.  
  
“A threat to yourself, in this case,” Draco said. “Because that kind of anger could get turned on yourself.”  
  
“Oh.” Harry looked interested. “I didn’t know you could do that.”  
  
“Well, you didn’t ask,” said Draco, and ignored the anxious way that his wings were fluttering in the mesh netting at the bottom of the bed. He had to confront his mate this way, if they weren’t going to have normal conversations without it. “And I’m wondering about something. Come here.” He held out his hand.  
  
Harry had started some protest that seemed to include the word, “But—” He stopped and walked over to Draco when Draco asked him to, though. His gaze was frankly evaluating as he put his hand in Draco’s.  
  
Draco closed his eyes and concentrated as hard as he could. Before, he hadn’t been able to feel much of anything through the bond except for flashes now and then. He had accepted that as the “natural” state of the bond after what Aloren had told him.  
  
But he found himself wondering, now, if it was really down to that, or down to something else. Perhaps he hadn’t been able to sense the true reason their bond had failed because he hadn’t known how to look for it.  
  
Now, he reached out with senses whose possession was still new to him and sent a soft throbbing pulse of emotion up the bond, along Harry’s arm. A normal Veela would have been able to do this without physical touch, but then again, a normal Veela would also have been able to order his submissive to speak the truth, and the submissive would have, whether or not he knew the truth consciously.   
  
Draco was going to try to stop regretting what he didn’t have, and rejoice in what he did.  
  
He slowly traced the line of his consciousness up and down Harry’s arm, and the pulse came back to him at last. Draco opened his mouth, and it flooded his tongue with the coppery taste of adrenaline and anger.  
  
He opened his mouth more fully, swallowed, and stared Harry in the face as he murmured, “I think I might have found the true reason behind the failure of our bond.”  
  
Harry stiffened. The mask of wariness he raised was painful, but nothing like the true indifference that Draco thought he had felt before. For one thing, Draco could now feel the pulse slamming away in Harry’s wrist. “Oh?” Harry asked tightly.  
  
Draco nodded and traced his fingers for a moment over Harry’s wrist, trying to make him calm down. It didn’t seem to work. Harry just kept watching him.  
  
“It’s nothing like a secret from your past,” Draco finally said, having decided that was the ultimate source of Harry’s tension. “Or if it is, it’s only a secret from the part that you already told me about. You’ve changed since the duel began. You know that, right?”  
  
Harry nodded, his eyes guarded. For a moment, he looked down at their clasped hands, then back at Draco’s face. “Madam Pomfrey said that maybe the bond was finally settling. But I don’t know what the difference was.”  
  
“You’re feeling so much emotion now,” Draco said quietly. “You didn’t feel much of anything before, except when you flung me into the library wall, and even that didn’t last long. You were trying to put up with what had happened to you instead of either embracing or rejecting it. The bond, I mean,” he added, when Harry squinted at him as if he didn’t know what “what had happened to you” meant.  
  
“But that’s what I have to do,” Harry said. “I mean—I have to try to make the world better. I can’t either just accept it the way it is, with all these stupid bloody prejudices, or give up on it.”  
  
Draco smiled at him, relieved, triumphant. “I know, but you told me that you were holding back all this anger and trying not to feel it. You got angry during the duel, didn’t you?”  
  
Harry blinked. “Yes. When I realized that she was taunting me about you, and then especially when I realized she’d given the dragon poison.” His face was turning red now, and Draco didn’t think it was because he was embarrassed.  
  
Draco nodded to him. “Well. I think that you essentially used your own magic to suppress not only anger but a lot of other emotions, too, all emotions that would have interfered with your peace process. Impatience. Boredom. Even pleasure, because it might distract you. And—well, the spell snapped. So those emotions are coming back, and  _that_ was what was interfering with our bond. Your own will, holding back the emotions that might have made you react in any deep way to the bond, positively or negatively.”  
  
Harry stared at him with his mouth open for a little, but didn’t reject the explanation, either. Draco gently tightened his hold, glad for the chance to just hold onto Harry’s hand and gaze at him.  
  
Then Harry whispered, “So what happens now?”  
  
“I start getting to know the real you,” Draco said. “And bonding with the real you, not some submissive out of my imagination or the perfect politician you were trying to imagine yourself into being.”  
  
Harry cocked his head. “Well. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.”  
  
Draco could have called it other things, but he could  _also_ agree with this. “Yes,” he said simply, and basked in Harry’s smile.


	25. Defenses and Defenders

“I’m sorry that my advice to you was so horrible,” said Hermione. Her voice was stiff, her hands were so stiff they could barely curve to handle the papers, and her eyes were on the table.   
  
Harry waited for a second to see if she would stop acting stupid on her own, but she didn’t, so he reached out and forcibly tilted her chin up. Her eyes glinted at him, full of stubborn tears.   
  
“Hermione,” said Harry softly. He hadn’t realized how much this would affect her. He had sought her out mainly because he had decided that he was going to let his temper out, and he knew she would want some kind of explanation. “You didn’t mean to give me bad advice.” He hesitated, and then asked a question Malfoy had asked him, one that he knew would bother him until it got answered. “Why did you tell me to suppress  _all_ of my temper, anyway? Why not just learn to control it?”  
  
“Because I saw the look on your face when you twisted Sibley’s foot the way you did,” Hermione whispered back, fiercely. “I didn’t want to see you look like that  _ever again_. And I was afraid you would unless you put your temper under control completely. It might erupt. It did that day.”  
  
“With provocation,” Harry reminded her. He glanced at her cautiously, but she seemed as if she was ready to look him in the eye and fight with him about it now. Harry nodded and sat back down on the other side of the table. He could hear Malfoy’s restless pacing on the other side of the door. He had come over to the small house Hermione and Ron had rented in Hogsmeade, and Malfoy had insisted on coming, but at least he would stay out of the room while Harry and Hermione talked.  
  
“Yes, I know,” said Hermione. “But—she’s one kind of person, and you’re another. The kind of person you are can’t  _do_ that kind of thing, Harry. Not without everything being lost.”  
  
“My political credibility being lost?” Harry hated to admit the quick flare of anger that raced up his throat and turned his hopes to ash when he heard that. Why would Hermione think of that first?  
  
 _Because it’s all she cares about,_ whispered the doubting voice in the back of his head, the one that had woken up since he and Malfoy had started talking more honestly in the past few days, and Malfoy had told him how robotic Harry seemed when he was shutting himself down.  
  
But Malfoy had reasons to be suspicious of his friends (or what he thought were reasons) that Harry would never share, and that suspicion itself burned to ash as Hermione tossed back her head and glared at him. “Don’t be  _stupid_. You made it through the war without splitting your soul. You think I want to see it happen to you  _now_? I don’t want to lose the kind of person you are, the person that makes you  _you_.” She reached out and grabbed Harry’s hand. “I thought I might lose you to being Malfoy’s mate at first, but instead, it’s going to be—what? To wielding your anger like a weapon?”  
  
“Well, you know,” said Harry, as confidingly as he could, “there is a middle ground between feeling angry and lashing out like a madman. I’m sort of angry at you right now, but I’m not trying to tear your throat out.”  
  
Hermione’s eyes widened a little, and she blinked. Then she said, “But I’m your friend.”  
  
“Ah.” Harry nodded wisely. “So it’s only strangers where you don’t trust me not to rip their throats out.”  
  
“That’s not it at all!” said Hermione, with hot indignation of her own that cracked Harry’s mask. “I never thought—Harry, are you  _laughing_?” She stared at him as though the halves of the cracked mask were doors falling away from his face. “Is this a  _joke_?”  
  
“Not the bit about trying to let my temper out now and then,” said Harry. That didn’t make a dent in Hermione’s expression, so he relented and explained as best as he could. “We figured out that suppressing my anger suppressed most of my other emotions, too. With magic, I mean. And that meant I couldn’t engage fully in the bond and being Draco’s mate.”  
  
Hermione blinked again. “You mean, it’s the only thing that let you have some semblance of a free will?”  
  
Harry rolled his eyes. She didn’t know anything more about the bond than he had at first, but he would have expected her to have more faith in his independence. “No. I’m never going to be submissive. But there are other things about the bond that were supposed to be happening sometimes. Draco should have been able to sense all my anger and defiance, and he only got it in these little solitary flashes that didn’t seem to come at any particular time.” He paused, watched Hermione’s darkening face, and added, “I think it’s going to work out for both of us. This way, Draco is going to  _believe_ that I don’t want to be submissive, because he can feel that desire through the bond now, and he’ll stop trying to make me into a slave.”  
  
There was a noise as though someone had straightened up suddenly from leaning against a door. Harry snorted. Well, he had never believed Draco would sufficiently overcome the temptation to listen.  
  
“I can see that,” said Hermione, after a long, reflective pause. “But it does make me wonder if you’re going to be any happier than you were, if you and Malfoy still aren’t coming to an agreement.”  
  
“I’m free to fight with all my resources this time,” Harry said quietly. “I’m not going to worry about being less than the perfect political machine and failing my duties if I yell at him.”  
  
“Is  _that_ the way you felt?” Hermione stared at him. “Oh, Harry, I’m  _sorry_. It’s just that you act like the war is still happening, and if you were going to cling to the peace effort as the one thing that might save you from that, then I thought I’d give you all the help I could.”  
  
“What?”  
  
Hermione clapped her hand over her mouth a second later, and made a little gulping sound. Harry stared at her, though, waiting for her to go on, and she had to, even though she was grimacing and shaking her head as though it was physically painful for her to do it.  
  
“I didn’t—I didn’t mean to phrase it like that.” Which meant, Harry was sure, that she hadn’t meant to say it  _aloud_. “But I’ve thought it a lot,” Hermione continued, facing up to the music like a brave woman. “That you can’t let the war go. It’s there in the back of your mind, affecting everything you do and say. To keep from thinking about it, you cling to the peace effort.”  
  
“That’s not the same thing as acting like the war is still happening, though.” Harry shook his head, trying to clear it. “I do think that I’ve thrown myself into the peace effort, but I told you—”  
  
“I know why,” Hermione interrupted quietly. “And it’s an admirable notion. What I meant by you acting like the war is still happening—you’re acting like everything has to be done  _now_ , settled  _now,_  or it’ll be useless.” She hesitated, then squeezed his hand hard, once, and let it go. “And in a war, you do have to be that way, or the enemy could win. Voldemort could have won. But the peace process can’t be rushed.”  
  
“I know it’ll take a long time.”  
  
“Then why not schedule meetings on different days?” Hermione sighed and dropped her chin onto her folded hands, something Harry didn’t think he’d seen her do in a long time, if ever. “Why not get to know some of the Muggleborns and pure-bloods you’ll be working with individually, instead of launching yourself into gathering them all up and trying to see as many of them as you possibly can at once? Why not push the plans for Hogwarts into the future, when you have a few less ambitious things accomplished?” Hermione shook her head. “Why are you so merciless with yourself?”  
  
Harry paused. That was much the same thing Malfoy had accused him of, and Hermione didn’t have the same motive that Malfoy—and sometimes even Ron—did in trying to get Harry to agree to the bond.  
  
“I don’t mean to be,” he said, and he hoped Hermione was listening to him. She hadn’t really raised her head or changed her expression. “I want to be kind and fair to everybody, including me. I mean, as kind as I can. There’s no reason to be kind to Maundy or people like that, who don’t deserve it.”  
  
Hermione smiled cautiously. “I was afraid you would say she was misunderstood or something, or that we needed her as part of the rebuilding effort even if we didn’t like her.”  
  
“It would have been good if we  _could_ have her as part of the rebuilding effort,” Harry said. “But I don’t think that was ever likely.”  
  
“Not without a lot of changes, no.” Hermione leaned back and looked at him curiously. “And you’re trying to change the way you do things?”  
  
“Yes,” said Harry. The prowling outside the door had stopped. He hoped that meant Malfoy was listening to this part more than he had to the argument between him and Hermione. He didn’t really want to argue with Malfoy about whether Hermione was being “mean” to him. “I showed a bit of anger to Maundy when she was speaking to me during the duel, you know.” Hermione was nodding. “And when she came to confirm that she would fulfill the stakes I’d demanded of her.”  
  
“I think you were wise to word it the way you did.” Hermione’s eyes were somber, and she rearranged some of the papers on the table in front of her without taking her gaze from him “She might find a way to come directly back at you otherwise.”  
  
Harry shrugged. “She might have allies who could do me harm. But that’s not the main thing I’m concerned about right now.”  
  
“What else about the peace process?” Hermione sat up straight.  
  
“I’m concerned about myself,” said Harry, with a small grimace. This conversation had taken a lot longer than he’d thought it would when he came to make this little announcement to Hermione. On the other hand, at least now he knew why she’d urged him to hold onto his temper, and he felt better about it. Her concern for him had been misguided, but so had some of the things Harry worried about. “I’m going to take a few days to just—think. I’ll be at Malfoy Manor, but I’m going to delay the meetings we set up. And meditate, the way I did when I was trying to learn Occlumency.”  
  
Hermione blinked. “Are you sure that Malfoy Manor is the best place to try and learn Occlumency? I mean, you felt safe at Hogwarts, and—”  
  
She shut up and blushed a little when Harry smiled at her. “I didn’t feel safe with Snape, though,” Harry said, and rushed on when Hermione opened her mouth. Yes, he had been wrong about Snape, and he could acknowledge that, but they weren’t going to have this conversation now. “And I’m not trying to learn Occlumency. Just thump some rubbish out of my head.”  
  
“Is Malfoy going to help you with that?”  
  
Harry held her eyes. “Yes. And it means that maybe I can finally live with this in some other way than just planning to lie back and think of England while he has his way with me.”  
  
Hermione looked as if she was going to gag. “You really—you were about to—”  
  
“That’s what the kind of person I was planning to become would have done,” Harry said. “And I thought that I couldn’t show any anger because it hurt him when I did. So I couldn’t refuse to have sex with him, and I would have to appear polite and agreeable to in public. Who knows what I would have given him if not for my commitment to the peace process? I insisted on being in public and attending meetings. But if I didn’t have that—”  
  
“Isn’t that what’s going to happen now?” Hermione whispered. “Because you’re going to do whatever Malfoy wants in the name of pacifying him or something, and—”  
  
“No,” said Harry firmly. “I know that I’m worth more than to just be a sacrifice. I always knew I was worth more than being a mindless slave. Now it’s time to realize I don’t have to be a slave to the peace process, either.”  
  
It took a moment, but Hermione smiled and nodded. Then she turned abruptly at the sound of an opening door. Harry looked up, too, surprised. He had heard Malfoy pacing outside the one door, but this wasn’t the one he was behind, the one that led into the corridor; this led into the bedroom.  
  
“About bloody time, mate,” Ron said, folding his arms and staring at Harry.  
  
Harry blinked. “Okay,” he said.  
  
“I was trying to give Malfoy some hints without you thinking I was betraying  _you_ ,” Ron went on, pacing in a circle and waving one arm as though he was going to clear cobwebs out of massive windows with an invisible cloth in his hand. “But he didn’t seem to ask the right questions, or he was going too slowly, or something. At least you finally saw sense. Took you long enough,” he added over his shoulder, in a grumbling tone that made Harry think Ron didn’t know whether to be more annoyed with Harry or Malfoy.  
  
“I had told him not to ask questions about my past,” said Harry. “Not my past before the war, anyway, or mostly during the war. That was why he hesitated.”  
  
Ron swung around and stared at him. “But how is he supposed to understand you if he doesn’t?”  
  
“At the time, I really didn’t care about him not understanding me.” Harry held up a hand when Ron opened his mouth. “I know, it was stupid and silly. At least this way, I have more to talk to him about.”  
  
And that, it seemed, was the end of Malfoy’s pretense that he couldn’t hear this conversation. The door into the corridor opened, and Harry turned around and faced him, ignoring Hermione’s outraged gasp. She had to have at least suspected Malfoy was there.  
  
“And  _are_  you going to talk to me about it at any point?” Malfoy paced slowly towards him, his wings fanned out, his attention focused on Harry in that steely way that had made Harry want to reject it from before simply because it was Malfoy. All right, and because Harry didn’t like someone staring at him like that.  
  
Harry held his breath for a few seconds until the temptation to simply strike out and reject Malfoy had passed, and until Malfoy was standing in front of him, gaze moving so simply and possessively over Harry. Harry nodded and said, “I think I’m going to rescind that order, or command, or whatever you want to call it.”  
  
“You’re ordering your mate around?” Ron asked.  
  
Harry would have said something, but Malfoy murmured, softly and sweetly, without taking his eyes off Harry, “Weasley, your intervention has been meritorious.  _Sometimes._ Right now, it isn’t.”  
  
Ron looked from one of them to the other, then rolled his eyes and reached for Hermione’s hand.  
  
“Wait,” said Hermione, standing up with a sheaf of papers in her hand and an annoyed look. “We still haven’t settled when we’re going to meet with the Muggleborn activists if you’re canceling the meeting today—”  
  
“Right now, that doesn’t matter,” Ron told her in a loud whisper Harry would have found funny if he could have looked away from Malfoy. “Come on, let’s go.” He gently took her arm and urged her out of the room through the door he’d used.  
  
When it shut behind them, Malfoy sighed like a dog released from a leash. He moved the last few steps towards Harry and murmured, “Why do you act as if you’re fighting me every time I look at you?”  
  
Harry hesitated once, but there was no sense of a magical order coming along with the words. He finally nodded and said, “Because I don’t like being looked at that way. As if I was the center of attention. I get it a lot, and it—bothers me.”  
  
“Because you think you don’t deserve the admiration?” Malfoy gave him a patient smile and laid one hand on Harry’s arm, rubbing back and forth as if testing the thickness of the bone. No one had ever touched Harry like that before, and he found himself shivering. Malfoy smiled. “If that’s the reason, I don’t think it’s good enough to stop.”  
  
Indignation surged, hot and sharp, in Harry’s heart, but then he paused. Malfoy still wasn’t ordering him around. He was talking to him as they had been used to talk, half-arguing, but not demanding.  
  
Harry grinned sharply at him and muttered, “Because they look at me like I’m a freak. And I don’t like being the center of attention.”  
  
“Ah,” said Malfoy, and his face had a light in it that Harry had never seen before. It reminded him a little of a spotlight, but before he could freeze, Malfoy reached out and slowly swept his hand down Harry’s cheek. “Then the next step is to convince you that you’re not a freak. And come up with ways to either make sure that you’re not the center of attention, or that you can get used to it when you are.”  
  
Harry studied him skeptically. “You’re somehow going to cease paying me attention?”  
  
“Oh, no.” Malfoy gave him an elegant little bow. “Mine is one of the kinds you’ll have to get used to.”  
  
Harry considered that, then nodded. At least he had something definite to react to, to think about. “All right. Then we’ll take a few days to get started on it?”  
  
Malfoy seemed to relax all at once, in a twitching of his wings and a rolling of his shoulders. “I was afraid you’d say we only had three days to sort it all out or something,” he muttered. “As long as you know this is only a beginning.”  
  
“It is,” Harry said firmly. “To discover what kind of person I want to be, instead of what kind of sacrifice, or hero, or martyr. Or mate,” he had to add.  
  
Malfoy inclined his head. “I know.”


	26. Meditation and Melioration

“I wanted to surprise you,” Draco said, in response to the way that Harry opened his door and blinked at him.  
  
Harry nodded slowly. His hair was so tousled Draco could hardly resist reaching out and smoothing it down and feeling the strands slipping past his hand, but he refrained. He gestured instead to the tray floating beside him, floating within the curve of one wing. He could have had a house-elf bring it as easily, but this was special.  
  
“Will you let me give you breakfast in bed?” Draco whispered.  
  
It took long, long moments, it seemed, for the words to slide through whatever protective barriers Harry kept around his mind. But then he smiled, and Draco felt as though he could have looked at that expression for hours. Maybe he was getting some emotion through the bond, too, he thought. It wasn’t like him to be so content with something so small.  
  
“Of course,” said Harry, and gestured Draco in.  
  
Draco escorted the tray into the room, and then left it to hover while he led Harry back to bed. Harry climbed onto it, and then snorted and went beneath the covers at Draco’s insistence, giving Draco a look that Draco was used to seeing across a broom. It said that Harry thought something was ridiculous—in this case,  _not_ Draco’s attempt to be good at catching a Snitch—but would go along with it anyway.  
  
Draco had to admit, he much preferred this particular setting to see that smile in.  
  
“Now,” said Draco, “I wasn’t sure what kind of chocolate you like, so I brought several different kinds.” He waved his wand, but he also moved his wings, and they were the more spectacular things, so of course Harry watched them. Draco smiled and folded them again, well-pleased. He wouldn’t ever display for a submissive mate and dazzle them with his feathers the way he had once imagined he would, but this was better.  
  
“How can there be different kinds?” Harry eyed the tiny steaming silver cups and then glanced at Draco. “I mean, chocolate is chocolate. There isn’t a different kind.”  
  
Sometimes his wealth enabled him to impress Harry or at least surprise him the way he had by showing up with the tray at the door. Draco smiled. “Then you’ve never had chocolate spiced with orange or hazelnut or other flavors? I pity you. And I wonder where you were at some of the meals in Hogwarts. I know they had it occasionally.”  
  
“I was probably too busy gorging myself on treacle tart,” Harry replied, and only looked pleased when Draco laughed, which Draco thought was something new as well. “Anyway.” He settled himself back on the pillow and opened his mouth.  
  
 _More compliant than I thought he’d be,_ Draco decided in a daze, and reached for the first cup of chocolate, the orange-spiced one. And then a searing insight struck him, and he nearly cried aloud as he clutched the cup to keep from spilling it.  
  
Part of Harry was enjoying this. He might not want to be pampered without a choice—he didn’t want the constricting bindings of the submissive role—but he liked to be fussed over sometimes. It must have been a long time since it last happened.  
  
And that knowledge could only have come to Draco through the bond. Draco didn’t know enough about Harry to be so certain of it, and he didn’t think Harry knew it, either, so the chance was small that Draco would pick up on it through accidental Legilimency.  
  
 _It’s strengthening._  
  
“Are you all right, Draco? You’re just standing there and staring at me like I already have food on my face.”  
  
Draco laughed shakily, and managed to steady his hand at the same moment as his voice. He didn’t want to spill the chocolate everywhere. “Sit up a little, so that I can get it into your mouth instead of on the blankets. You’re very cute this way, but it’s hard to reach your mouth.”  
  
Harry’s face flamed as he sat up so hastily that the blankets flew away. Draco tucked them gently back and murmured, “What is it? You’re not used to hearing that you’re cute?”  
  
“I’m not used to people looking at me the way you’re looking.” Harry shifted a second later, and added, “Well, okay, sometimes they do. But it’s mostly when I’m making speeches or they’re waiting to be introduced to me, and it’s not me they’re seeing. It’s my fame, or my _heroism_ , or whatever they think I’m special for.”  
  
Draco paused. He wanted to feed Harry the chocolate, but he also wanted to discuss this. Maybe he could limit it to one question, and use a Heating Charm on the chocolate if he had to. “You don’t think you were a hero?”  
  
“For killing someone? No.”   
  
“You only did what this prophecy said you had to do,” Draco murmured, wishing he could take Harry in his wings and hug him, but it wouldn’t be the right gesture at the moment. “You know he would have killed you and a lot of other people without it.”  
  
“I know,” said Harry, and sighed. “I didn’t feel that bad right after I did it. I told myself all the justifications. And Dumbledore was depending on me to do it, and Snape, and he killed my parents. The dead and the living needed me. That’s what I told myself.”  
  
“So,” Draco said slowly, “was that another reason that you became so involved in the peace process? You’d done something you thought was wrong, so you wanted to do something that no one could argue was right. Well, except pure-bloods like Maundy, but you didn’t pay much attention to them anyway.”  
  
 _Except he tried to bring even Maundy and her kind into the alliance._ Maybe that hadn’t been simply a political maneuver or foolish naïveté, the way Draco had considered it at first. Maybe it was Harry trying to make sure he reached out to everyone so he could give everyone a fair chance and not hurt anyone.  
  
“Guilt isn’t the best motivation for that,” Draco said.  
  
Harry was staring hard at him. “I suppose so,” he said, and it took Draco a moment to realize what he was agreeing to. “I just—look, I didn’t want another war. And I was selfish enough. I told you that.”  
  
“Guilt can be selfish,” Draco agreed.   
  
Harry sighed and rolled his head to the side. That didn’t suit Draco’s plans, so he waited until Harry rolled back and muttered, “I reckon it could be that. I just didn’t think about it that way.”  
  
“Well, it’s something to consider,” said Draco peacefully, and motioned with the cup of chocolate again. “Do you want to drink this after all?”  
  
Harry seemed to think hard about it, but then he nodded and relaxed against the pillows. “I have even more to think about than I thought,” he muttered.  
  
Draco touched his shoulder with a light hand, and waited until Harry was looking at him. “That’s not a bad thing,” he said quietly.  
  
Harry blinked, hesitated, then said, “I suppose not.”  
  
Draco smiled, and proffered the chocolate cup again. And then they spent an enjoyable few minutes determining that Harry liked the orange-spiced chocolate best, and disliked hazelnut flavors, and actually liked the vanilla that swirled in the largest cup of chocolate quite a bit, but not enough to sacrifice the orange for it, and Harry made Draco laugh by grabbing the orange cup out of his hands when Draco pretended he was going to put it away and guzzling a good bit of it.  
  
The other things were there with them, moving under the surface, but at least Draco knew they could sometimes concentrate on pleasure.  
  
*  
  
Harry leaned back softly against the cushioned wall of the meditation room that Draco had introduced him to. Harry had asked about a quiet place, never dreaming the Manor had something like this.   
  
It was large and bright, with soft, flickering, transparent panes of glass that didn’t simply show a view out, the way most enchanted windows did. Here, the way the glass looked was part of the view, the beauty of the large and lozenge-shaped panes crisscrossed with strips of purple and iron something the eye was meant to absorb.   
  
Or so Draco had said. Harry didn’t know much about all that, and didn’t know what to make of Draco’s sideways glance and low steely mutter that said he would learn.  
  
Harry only knew that he liked this, the slow sliding quiet, the round walls of the room, the padded cushions against his back and the smell of incense in his nostrils although none burned. Harry centered himself and dived into his mind.  
  
It had been too long since he’d done this. Tranquility came and went, as elusive as the light through the windows. Harry reminded himself forcefully that he couldn’t  _chase_ peace, any more than he could fall asleep by willing it. He opened his eyes and looked out the windows again.  
  
Gradually, his mind calmed down. Harry drifted through the center of himself, and watched the emotions that danced around him.   
  
They were brighter than before. In the deep, solemn peace he had managed to attain, it took Harry far longer than it should have to figure out why.  
  
Yes, his magic  _had_ held back his emotions. It hadn’t been particularly to resist the bond; after all, Harry hadn’t known the bond existed or could exist when he had begun this suppression. He had wanted to get rid of the anger, in his horror at turning Marena Sibley’s foot inside out. He had wanted to get rid of the pain.  
  
 _And the guilt_.  
  
Draco was right about that. The guilt was there when he thought about it, which wasn’t often. He didn’t like dwelling on it. He had tortured, he had used spells that he shouldn’t have, but Voldemort’s was still the only human life he had ever deliberately taken. Quirrell might count, but Harry hadn’t set out to kill him.  
  
 _You used the wand against him, and in the end, he killed himself._  
  
That was what Hermione had said. Harry had listened to her, and agreed with her, although only on the surface. He had thought the guilt wouldn’t cripple him, and he could get on with doing something better, something that, if his name had to be remembered at all, would give it something much better to be remembered for. He hadn’t realized how deeply and persistently part of himself didn’t agree with Hermione’s notions.  
  
Harry let out a noisy breath that nearly snapped him out of his meditation trance. Fine. If he could use his magic to change himself in one way, to hold back all the feelings he thought were interfering, surely he could use it to change himself another way?  
  
A fierce rush of—well, emotion, went through him, and Harry started. That nearly broke the trance, too, and he had to fight to hold onto it.   
  
 _No._ He wasn’t going to use his magic to change himself into a better mate for Draco, no matter how much sense it might make, and no matter how comfortable it might make Draco. He didn’t  _want_ to change.  
  
So. His magic might have the ability to affect his mind, but he couldn’t deliberately use it to make himself better, or stronger, or wiser. Thinking about it made him want to spit with revulsion. He could try to become a good person. He couldn’t will himself there.  
  
Either by suppressing his anger, or becoming easier with Draco’s desires, or opening himself up by force to talk about his past. He would have to be the one to make the decision, and reverse his own prohibition, and talk to Draco face to face if that was what he wanted to do.  
  
Hesitant, Harry opened his eyes and looked out the marvelous crystal windows again.  
  
There might be  _one_ thing he could do. One thing that would use his magic and usefully employ that dangerous little ability he had to change his own mind, but not make him into a robot, the way he had almost become with that change he hadn’t known was going to happen.  
  
Carefully, Harry focused on what he wanted now. He wanted to be a good person, someone who cared about other people instead of just taking what he wanted. He wanted to be a strong person, someone who was able enough to survive the strain of the peace process and still keep contributing to the wizarding world. He wanted lots of things.  
  
He drove his magic down into the foundations of his mind, strengthening them, adding little weaves of will. His magic couldn’t make him into someone else, but it might be able to make him be  _himself,_ as strongly as he could be.  
  
No longer held back by false guilt and fear. He would still feel those things, because he was human—no matter what some people wanted to think—but they had to be real, not delusions that were so strong Harry hadn’t even known they were sitting on part of him.  
  
The magic didn’t immediately work, but Harry opened his eyes feeling more refreshed, more open than he had even after he’d “woken up” during the duel and confronted Maundy in the hospital wing. He could make his own decisions. He would still do his best by others, but that code had to come from within himself, not imposed by others, however well-meaning.  
  
Not Hermione. Not Draco. Not Veela tradition. Not the “practical” means of getting ahead that he’d been trying to learn from other people in politics, because they’d told him he would never succeed if he didn’t listen to them and do what everyone else was doing.  _Himself_.  
  
And that meant Harry could consider whether  _he_ was the one who wanted to do something, rather than the imaginary person he’d been making up in his head. The one who had to do certain things because too many people would be frightened or disappointed otherwise. Some of those things he’d been avoiding were so private that Harry had to shake his head. Who would ever have  _known_ about some of those deprivations he’d been inflicting on himself?  
  
And one of the things he wanted to do was give a scrap of his past to Draco, and see how he would react.  
  
*  
  
Draco rose to his feet with his wings trembling when Harry came out of the meditation room. Harry had asked Draco not to come in with him, and reluctantly, Draco had had to agree that that was sense. He could have kept silent, but he knew from experience during (bitter) Occlumency practice that even an interested gaze could have an impact.  
  
But now, he knew. The Harry who opened the door of the meditation room wasn’t the same one who had walked through it.  
  
Harry looked at him, smiled a little, and said, “I’m hungry. Can we go have lunch, and I’ll tell you something?”  
  
“Of course,” Draco whispered, his vision swimming, wondering for a moment if the “something” would be that Harry wanted to end the bond.  
  
But whatever difference, or clarity of mind, or strength of emotion, had come to Harry, it didn’t appear that ending the bond was what was on his mind. He stretched out a hand and said, “It’s okay. I did use up a lot of magical energy, though. If I have it, I might as well make it work for me.”  
  
Draco took his hand and pulled him down the corridor towards the nearest sitting room that was mostly clear of furniture and could stand to have crumbs or stains dropped in it, asking in as teasing a voice as possible, “What did you use it for?”  
  
“To be  _myself,_ as hard as I can,” Harry said. “I decided I didn’t want to be a different person. I wanted to be me.”  
  
Draco reached out with one wing and touched Harry’s heart, before he could think. His wings had been half-folded along his back in the relaxed posture he usually kept them in, and suddenly one was there, an instinctive gesture, like escorting the tray in had been. “Sorry,” he whispered, and pulled it back.  
  
“What was that for?”   
  
At least Harry looked curious, and the shimmering chord in the back of Draco’s mind played a note that he thought was curiosity, too. He swallowed and said, “I’ve been  _waiting_ to hear you say that. It’s you I want, not someone else. Not someone who’s—a mask, or a perfect politician, even if that would be the best Harry Potter for the masses. You’re the one I was supposed to be mated with.”  
  
Harry blinked, twice. “But if the real me is the one who rejected you in the Ministry, why would you want that person?”  
  
“Because I know better now,” Draco retorted. “And so do you, I hope.”  
  
“Yes,” said Harry, although he frowned through the rest of their journey to the sitting room. A house-elf brought them sandwiches with more mustard than Draco found comfortable, but Harry bit in with gusto. Draco settled back with a small nod. If the elves could sense Harry’s moods and consider his tastes, he was settling in here. It would never be the same as a submissive Veela’s birthright gift as the heart of the house, but it didn’t need to be.  
  
“Listen,” Harry said, when he’d eaten his way through two sandwiches. “I’m going to tell you something. About the things I didn’t want you to ask about.” He put the plate back on his lap, and his eyes were brilliant and direct as he held Draco’s.  
  
“ _Tell_ me already.” Draco knew his voice had a hint of a screech in it, a parrot’s raucous scream. His hands curved into claws in his lap.   
  
“But you have to promise not to start yelling about it,” Harry said.   
  
Draco threw his head back and said, “That will be very hard,” as his wings unfolded and flapped above his head. He had known he would learn things about Harry’s past that wouldn’t please him, but the tone in Harry’s voice, the look in his eyes…  
  
“I know,” said Harry. “I’m going to ask you for it anyway. If you start swearing or talking about vengeance, then I’ll just have to interrupt you and argue with you, and that would stop the conversation.”  
  
Draco hesitated once, then nodded. “All right.”  
  
And Harry took a deep breath, and said, “I slept in a cupboard under the stairs at my aunt and uncle’s house until I was eleven years old.”  
  
Draco’s wingbeat carried him off the chair, and his scream echoed around the room. Harry only watched him, though, his hand making big dents in his sandwich, and waited until Draco settled back on the chair.  
  
Draco found his human voice somewhere, and whispered, “Go on.”


	27. Secrets and Security

“Are you all right?” Harry reached out and clasped down on one of Draco’s hands, trying at one and the same time to hold him there and reassure him. Draco’s eyes were brilliant, too brilliant, like swirling pools of silver light, and there was an unnatural twitch running through his wings. Despite the way he had risen from the chair a minute ago, Harry didn’t think he was about to fly.   
  
“I’m—I will be,” said Draco. He shut his eyes for a moment, shut away the disturbing silver light, and left Harry to hold onto him and breathe quietly. A second later, he opened his eyes. Then he closed them again. “But you need to explain what you mean about living in a cupboard.”  
  
“The Dursleys have, had, I don’t know which,” said Harry. He didn’t know if the Dursleys had ever gone back to live in Number Four Privet Drive. “A cupboard under their stairs. That’s where they put me. I spent time in there when I used magic. When they didn’t want to look at me.”  
  
“Which would have been all the time, I suppose,” said Draco, and his voice was flat and hard.  
  
“Yes,” said Harry softly.  
  
“I don’t understand them,” Draco whispered, harsh, tense, and his wings jerked, as if someone was holding onto a rope and pulling against them. “How could they turn against you? And it’s not just because it’s  _you_ , and you’re my mate,” he added fretfully, as if he thought Harry would misunderstand him, argue against him. “Although that’s part of it. How could anyone turn against a child like that?”  
  
Harry relaxed. He had hoped Draco would say something like that. Yes, he knew a Veela would be outraged about any abuse or insult used against its mate, but Harry wanted to remind Draco that  _anyone_ in that situation would have been abused, hurt, in danger. Harry wanted to be valued for himself, for being human, not just for being Draco’s mate.  
  
Although that did rather raise the question of what Draco would think of Harry calling himself human, and making it something different from a Veela.  
  
Harry went on with the story, because he thought Draco might try to buffet it out of him with his wings if Harry hesitated much longer. “They put me in there when they wanted to punish me, too, though. For ten years, that was all I knew. Then I got the Hogwarts letter, and I realized that magic was real. The weird things I could do had a name. And they’d known, too, or at least my uncle and aunt did. I have no idea about my cousin.”  
  
“They kept it from you,” Draco whispered, in the same soft tone he had used to whisper endearments to Harry. It was a little unnerving, actually. “They kept your heritage from you, and they made you think you were—what? Different from them? Abnormal?”  
  
“A freak.” The word still dried out Harry’s throat when he tried to say it, as ridiculous as that was. “That was the word they used.”  
  
“It isn’t a word that you’ll call yourself in front of me,” said Draco.  
  
Harry laughed once, and startled himself in doing it, although perhaps not Draco, from the thoughtful way Draco watched him. “I think I can safely promise you that I will never use it again. I only used it now because you asked me.”  
  
Draco spread his wings and fluttered the tips in that little movement that Harry was coming to understand as part of preening, or flirting. They might not be all that separate, for Veela. Then Draco’s smile faded, and he said, “Good. I’m glad that you could say it once. What else did they do to you?”  
  
“Before or after I got my Hogwarts letter?” Harry shrugged. “It wasn’t as bad, after, but there were still some bad times.”  
  
“You’ll tell me everything,” said Draco, with an assurance so calm that it wasn’t even arrogance. “But right now, I want to know about before. I think I might know a little more about after, based on some rumors that went around.”  
  
“All right.” Harry paused for a moment. He was remembering what had happened. He wanted to tell the truth, he wanted to give Draco some idea of what he had gone through, but he also didn’t want to exaggerate it or make it seem worse than it had been.  
  
“You might as well tell me.” Draco’s voice was very gentle, and Harry looked up to see him leaning forwards again, his wings trembling now and his voice also vibrating, on the edge of a croon. “Think of it that way, and then you’ll see why it has to be so. We could stop talking here, or you could give me bare facts and nothing else, but that wouldn’t be true to what’s happening between us, and you know it.”  
  
“I do want to give you the facts,” said Harry. “What I felt about it, but I want to tell you the truth, not just what I felt.”  
  
*  
  
Draco caught one of Harry’s hands and held it to his lips. He wondered if he could show Harry how much that desire meant to him, and at the same time, how little he needed the truth and the truth only.  
  
“What you felt about it is the most important part of the truth to me,” he said, and turned his head to the side so he could rub his cheek against Harry’s palm. The way that Harry’s breath caught and his eyes widened was a  _very_ encouraging sign. Draco hid a smile and kept massaging Harry’s hand with his own. “This would be horrible if it had happened to anyone, but it does matter  _more_ to me that it happened to you. Do you understand?”  
  
Harry hesitated a long time before he nodded. Draco felt a burst of affection. Harry was caught between believing—knowing—he was important to Draco, and wanting to think he was the same as everyone else. It was probably the same conflict that had bothered him during the war, Draco imagined. Even if he was prophesied to defeat the Dark Lord, Harry wanted to think of himself as ordinary.  
  
“So,” said Draco. “Tell me what happened.”  
  
“The cupboard,” said Harry. “Calling me freak. Not telling me the truth about magic, although I was only angry afterwards when I found out about that. Oh, and calling my parents names and never telling me the truth about  _them_ , either.” His eyes were fierce. Draco squeezed his hand again, and listened in enchantment as Harry took a deep breath and sat up. “My cousin beat me up and made sure I never had friends at school.”  
  
He hesitated and cast a glance at Draco. “In a way, that was the reason we got off on the wrong foot at first, did you know that? I’d  _never_ had friends. And then there was Ron, and he actually seemed to like me, and you came in and taunted him. There was no way I was going to listen to you after that.”  
  
Draco sniffed. His feelings about that scene had been transfigured, a little, by the transformation when he had become a Veela, and learning that Harry was his mate. At the same time, he could still feel echoes of irritation. “I was eleven. Spoiled. Stuck up. But I would never have called you a freak.”  
  
Harry rolled his eyes at him. “No, only a liar, a cheat, a—”  
  
“There’s no point in remembering  _that_ part of the past,” said Draco hastily. “We both know about it, and we can discuss it any time. But we need to spend more time on this story you’re telling me now, because you’re the only one who knows about it.”  
  
Harry spent some time studying  _him_ , and then he nodded, his shoulders relaxing. “You have something there,” he muttered. “All right. They also starved me.”  
  
“ _Did_ they?” Draco became aware that his voice had gone high and silvery only when Harry winced a little from it.  
  
“They locked me in the cupboard without food, and they wouldn’t let me eat unless I did chores, sometimes.” Harry sighed. “I survived it, but it’s something that—I don’t like to think about now.” He hesitated. “They put me in a bedroom after they started getting the Hogwarts letters, because they were addressed to the cupboard under the stairs and they  _hated_ the thought of someone watching them. But they put the food through a flap at the bottom of the door.”  
  
“Why was that?” Draco made his voice almost coaxing, and Harry leaned towards him, instinctively, Draco thought, his eyes wide.  
  
“Because they didn’t want me eating with them,” Harry said. “And because there were so many locks on the door that it was hard to get it open.”  
  
Draco nodded. He had thought it was something like that. He was pleased that Harry was no longer attempting to conceal the truth from him or soften its impact— _he_ was the one who would have to decide when he had heard as much as he wanted to—and he was shaking with rage that he couldn’t let out because it would tear off the roof of the house.  
  
Or whatever else Harry’s relatives lived in now. Draco had no doubt that he could find them. He was sensitive to everything of his mate’s, and a blood connection would be easy to track.  
  
He swallowed down the rage for now, although it burned his throat, and murmured, “When did you leave them for the last time?”  
  
“When I turned seventeen.” Harry eased back on the chair as though he assumed they didn’t need to be as close now that Draco wasn’t whispering, but Draco seized his hand and shook his head violently. Harry blinked at him, but stayed put. “I had to stay there until then so the blood protections could do their work. And then the Aurors came and took them away to protect them, and I haven’t seen them since.”  
  
His voice made it seem like it was so long ago, but Draco knew it was last summer. Barely a year. He breathed, he swallowed, and then he asked, so softly that his voice drifted and coiled like smoke around the room, “They gave them protection? Why? They were hardly wizards.”  
  
Harry shrugged. He was still holding Draco’s gaze, but he looked a little uncomfortable again. “They were my relatives, and there was some fear that they might be killed by Death Eaters, or Voldemort might kill them to get to me, or something.”  
  
In his voice was the deep relief that Draco didn’t know if he would admit to himself, that he would never have to see them again, whether they were safe or not. It was an emotion Draco couldn’t imagine himself feeling about any of his family, no matter how estranged they became from each other. He was still angry with his mother for bringing in Aloren without telling him, but at least he was sure she would stand behind him. Never treat him like the Dursleys had Harry.  
  
“Do you want them punished?”  
  
Harry didn’t reply immediately, something that pleased Draco. He sat there, staring past Draco’s shoulder, probably entertaining several scenarios in his head. Then he glanced at Draco and shook his head. “There’s part of me that would like it, but then I would feel too guilty. It’s not worth it.”  
  
Draco slowly inclined his head. He could understand that. But he had to do  _something_ with this new knowledge and the way that it made his fingernails want to transform into claws. “What do you want, then?”  
  
“You mean, who do I want you to take revenge on?” Harry shifted his weight. “No one. I told you that because I wanted you to know and so it wouldn’t be a secret between us, not because I wanted revenge.”  
  
 _Because I wanted you to know._ Draco listened to the echo of those words for a moment, sweeter than any song, and then he asked, gently, “What do you  _want_? Not revenge. I want to give you something because of what you endured. I have to give you something.” The fire curling inside him, the fire focused on his mate, demanded it.  
  
Harry thought about that for a long moment, long enough that Draco could breathe again. At least that meant he would probably get a serious answer, instead of one that was made up simply so Harry could fend him off.   
  
“I think,” said Harry carefully, “that I’d like a massage.”  
  
Draco’s wings twitched. Not at all what he had thought Harry would choose, but then again, he didn’t know Harry well enough to say what an expected response would be. “Would you?” he asked. “From me, I suppose.” Not that he would have let someone else touch Harry for any reason, right now, but it was nice to see the way Harry gave him a blank look.  
  
“Of course you,” said Harry, and stood up and turned around and willingly removed his shirt for the first time in front of Draco. Well, willingly for the first time that didn’t have to do with immediately putting on another one.  
  
Draco’s wings twitched again. He might have said something, but his mouth was full with his own happiness. He moved towards Harry, who had turned his head to watch him appraisingly over one shoulder.   
  
Harry’s back was crisscrossed with thin, faint scars, ones Draco had noticed before. Now, he thought he knew where some of them came from, and his chest swelled with the need to scream.  
  
But Harry had said that he didn’t want Draco hunting his relatives down. That was reason enough not to do it. Plus the temptation of a chance to touch Harry instead of him squirming to get away was not to be disdained.  
  
“If you only knew how much I’d longed to touch you,” Draco whispered, and began to run his fingers lightly up and down Harry’s shoulders.  
  
“Wouldn’t this be easier if I was lying down on something?” Harry’s muscles had become tense, not at all the result Draco wanted from a massage.  
  
“Yes, of course,” Draco said, and drew his wand and Transfigured the couch into a bed. His eyes wouldn’t leave Harry. Perhaps later he would worry about that. But right now, it was the natural and expected result, and he could feel little tingles of happiness pouring through him.  
  
Most of them were probably his, but he also thought of some of them were coming through the bond.  
  
“Draco?” Harry asked, cocking his head as he walked over to the bed and draped himself onto the silken sheets in the middle, nearly making Draco’s brain slide out his ears with happiness.  
  
“Yes?” Draco whispered, creeping closer, his hands flexing out and trembling with the desire to caress, to touch, and go on touching.  
  
“Why make it a bed instead of just having me lie down on a couch?” Harry rolled to one side on his elbow, and his smile was faint, but real. “Is there a particular reason for that?”  
  
“No sex until you’re ready,” said Draco, because he didn’t know if Harry was actually frightened, but it was something unacceptable if he was. And he wanted Harry to know the truth whether or not he was. “I want to learn you first, to understand you.” His wings were out, and he knew his gait towards the bed was almost a stalk, but at least he didn’t prompt a fear response from Harry  _now_. The glimmer in his eyes was definitely interest. “I conjured a bed because I thought it would be the most comfortable for you. And it’s wider than the couch.”  
  
Harry visibly thought about it for a moment, then shrugged and said, “That’s true.” And he lay down on the bed and trustingly turned his back towards Draco.  
  
Draco covered the rest of the distance with a single beat of his wings, and landed directly beside the bed, crooning. Other than a slight tension in Harry’s shoulders, there was no negative reaction, and Harry relaxed a second later.  
  
“Why did you choose a massage?” Draco whispered as he conjured the soft oil he would use. It was a sort he had often used on himself after a bath. “When you had to know it would mean my hands would be all over you?”  
  
“ _Because_ I knew it would mean that your hands were all over me,” Harry said, his voice muffled by the pillow he had his face mashed into. He turned his head to the side, and Draco delicately plucked off his glasses and put them over to the side so that Harry wouldn’t be hurt by having them press into his ears and eyes. Harry blinked in what Draco thought was shock, but he made no objection. “I want to know what that feels like.”  
  
“To learn how to tolerate it?” Draco’s wings shook again. He supposed it might be that. Typical Potter, trying to be a good mate, trying to put everyone before himself, trying to—  
  
“No.” Harry hesitated again, and then said, “Because I might like it, but I don’t know for certain yet.”  
  
Draco leaned forwards and showed him exactly what it felt like, and if his wings were still twitching and his croon was shaking his throat, well, Harry didn’t look disposed to blame him for it.


	28. Massages and Melting

The way that Draco’s hands skimmed over his muscles left Harry not only gasping, but wondering why in the world he had never tried this before. Why  _not_? It seemed so harmless—it wasn’t like he was letting Draco have access to his every thought and plan, or read his mind, or anything—but it was so  _good_. He let his head fall into his hands instead of watching Draco sideways, and moaned.  
  
Draco was still for a second, hands trembling. Harry hesitated, then smiled. He had been about to ask Draco what was wrong, but he thought he knew.  
  
“Do that again,” Draco whispered a second later, by his ear. Harry lost the smile in an instant, and arched his back. He wasn’t the only one who could cause a response in someone else, a response that was teasing but that they wanted to be harder.  
  
“Moan?” Harry whispered. “It’s hard to do unless you start touching me the way you did last time, like th-that. Oh,  _Merlin_.” Because Draco’s hands were back on his shoulders, thumbs digging into the center while the rest of his fingers rubbed a strong, insistent circle. Draco hissed and Harry hissed back, feeling nearly as though he was speaking Parseltongue.  
  
 _Maybe Draco would like that, too._  
  
But it was hard to concentrate on what Draco would like, or even methods that he might use to seduce Draco, because his skin was prickling with gentle itchiness, and he wanted to move back. He wanted those fingers that were smoothing so lightly across his skin to press harder. He didn’t think he would be very coherent, if he asked. He shoved his shoulders back and made a grunting noise.  
  
Draco paused for a second, and in the tense silence around them, Harry read his fear that he might have done something wrong. Then he chuckled as if to himself, and began smoothing what felt like extra oil into Harry’s skin.  
  
“You do want more, don’t you?” he whispered. His voice was deep and thick, a croon that had lost some of its sweetness. His wings trembled and vibrated, and Harry could feel the faint, thin wind they generated stirring his hair. “You  _do_?”  
  
With a start, Harry realized he was supposed to respond, that Draco might not feel at ease until he did so. He nodded violently into his pillow and lifted his head with a little hiss, trying to make his back into a curve that would be irresistible to touch. He knew some people could do that, although he didn’t know if he was one of them.  
  
Draco chirped, or at least made a noise that sounded a lot like it. Harry tried to open his eyes and sit up, startled a little out of the mood, but Draco pressed down with his fingers and chirped again, and Harry relaxed back with a long sigh, dropping his head onto his hands.  
  
“I’ll take care of you,” Draco said. He sounded almost delirious with something that was probably pleasure, Harry thought, his skin still prickling with Draco’s touch and the realization that he wanted someone to do what Draco was doing. “Just lie back and put everything in my hands, and I’ll take care of it. Of you. Of  _everything_.”  
  
Harry frowned into the pillow at that. He wasn’t sure that he wanted someone who would do that. It was the same conflict he had had with Draco before this, about whether he would be responsible for some things. He couldn’t do this if Draco was responsible for everything.  
  
“It’s only an expression,” Draco whispered, and his voice was still light and teasing, if not as delirious as before. “Let me for right now, and you can rise and take up your burdens again when the massage is done.”  
  
He sounded as if he was rolling his eyes, and it was that more than anything else which made Harry relax. If he could laugh at himself, then he wasn’t dreaming about submission Harry could never give him.  
  
More than anything else, Harry wanted honesty between them now. He needed to know what Draco needed, and what he wanted. And he needed Draco to know the same things about himself.  
  
 _We can do this. But we have to be careful._  
  
At least, that was what Harry thought until the fingers dug again into the middle of his back and melted away some of his resistance.  _Then_ his head rolled forwards, and he was more than all right with this symbolic surrender.  
  
*  
  
 _He’s always thinking. About consequences, and that sort of thing. I suppose that’s what his tenure as a political being has taught him._  
  
Draco understood, he really did. And he wouldn’t waste the gift of the understanding and the chance that Harry was giving him. But he also wanted to destroy that thinking and scatter Harry’s brain to the far corners of the universe.  
  
He thought he’d found it when he dug down hard with his hands. He got an incoherent mumble, and when he arched his neck a little so he could look down at Harry’s face around the corner of his temple, he saw—  
  
He saw what he  _had_ to see, Draco thought a little while later. What would give him the strength and courage to go on with trying to seduce Harry and give him freedom at the same time. He needed a reward, and Harry had given him one.  
  
But that thought came to him later, just like Harry’s thoughts came back later. What Draco  _saw_  was Harry’s parted lips and rapidly blinking eyes, and his hands clenching in the sheets of the bed, and his soft exhale of breath that became a rapid  _Oh_.  
  
“Harry?” Draco whispered, bending over and leaning his lips down towards Harry’s ear. His head was whirling. His wings were beating as slowly and regularly as if he was flying.  
  
“Yeah?” Harry asked, gasped really, and rolled his head to the side and opened his eyes fully.  
  
They were blank, glazed. Draco reached out and touched Harry’s cheek. He couldn’t have stopped himself now if he’d known that someone would take his fortune away if he touched Harry. “You’re perfect,” he whispered. “Can I kiss you?” It was amazing, the way he could cling to his self-control enough to ask that instead of just  _taking_. But he remembered the way Harry would feel if Draco didn’t ask, and so the self-control was there.  
  
“What?” Harry blinked dazedly, and some of the glaze slid away. Then he nodded frantically. “Yeah, you can. Just keep touching me,  _please_.”  
  
It was a lot harder to massage Harry when he was turned like that so Draco could kiss him at the same time, but Draco managed. His hands were locked on Harry’s shoulders, and he could at least stroke those. And he dug his fingers in and rubbed them back and forth in tiny, tight circles at the same time as he planted his lips on Harry’s, and Harry cried out and lifted his arms to hold Draco.  
  
Draco was tumbling inside his head, inside his body, so happy he could scarcely move. Only his lips and his hands and his tongue, when Harry’s mouth opened, were alert enough to work. He stroked and soothed and kissed and aroused at the same time, and Harry was wrapping around him like a monkey.  
  
For a moment, Draco worried that he might have used some of his Veela magic without realizing it, and he was influencing Harry in a way that Harry wouldn’t have liked if he was conscious, but Harry moaned and kicked at his chest, and suddenly Draco was on the bed with him, trying not to crush his wings.  
  
And after that, it didn’t matter.  
  
*  
  
Harry didn’t know where this sudden tide of  _lust_ had come from, but he liked it.   
  
It was like burning gold dust that flooded him and brought life he hadn’t known was missing back to his limbs. He wanted to kiss, and kiss, and  _kiss_. And then he wanted to  _bite_ , and he bit the first thing he thought of, Draco’s tongue.  
  
Draco froze. Then he shoved Harry flat, and his wings were breaking free, frantically flapping, above them, and the wind blew Harry’s hair back. It didn’t detach Harry’s mouth from Draco’s, though, which was the only thing Harry cared about.  
  
It was  _so good_. Harry was coming to regret ever being afraid. Why had he been afraid? There was some pain, maybe, there would be pain when Draco forced his way in, but at the moment, Harry only wanted to shed his trousers and let Draco do whatever he wanted.  
  
The lust burned, and burned. Harry kissed and bit Draco’s lips in a frenzy, and Draco pulled back, staring at him.  
  
“What changed your mind so suddenly?” he asked. His voice was hoarse, and the only thing Harry thought about was how beautiful he looked with big eyes and swollen lips and wings that curved and drooped above him like palm fronds.  
  
“Does it matter?” Harry snapped, and reached up to hook his fingers through Draco’s hair. He pulled him back down, and Draco made a muffled sound and shoved at his chest with both hands held flat. But Harry didn’t have time to listen to his frankly silly concerns. He was _kissing_ , and Draco was the only one who could ease the heat inside him. Harry opened his legs and humped up at him impatiently.  
  
Draco sprang aside, into the air.  
  
Harry snarled at him and sat up, snatching at him. Draco darted out of the way and hovered there with his wings making the pillows and sheets and everything else on the bed flutter. Harry glared at him. “You wanted so badly to fuck me and now you’re just letting the chance pass you by?” he demanded.  
  
“I want you to think about this.” Draco’s voice was long and slow, and Harry wondered why he wasn’t consumed by the same fiery desire that Harry could feel smoldering in his own stomach. Wasn’t this what a Veela bond was supposed to be like? “You changed your mind suddenly. I want to make sure that it wasn’t the result of—of anything I did.”  
  
“You seduced me,” said Harry, and put on a smile that he hoped was seductive itself. He didn’t think so, though, from the frankly odd stare Draco gave him. Harry snapped his fingers at him. “Come  _on_. Don’t you want to?”  
  
Draco’s eyes sparked with so much passion that Harry smiled hopefully. “I want to,” Draco said. “But with you in your right mind.”  
  
“This  _is_ my bloody right mind!” Harry flung out his arms out and slumped back on the pillow, glaring. “Bloody Veela.”  
  
“No, it’s not,” Draco said gently. “I wonder…You got so angry at Maundy, after months of not being angry at all. I think you had to subdue it because you were taking care of me, and I needed you. But I wonder if maybe you would have been exploding with rage if not for that.” He hesitated. “And you held back your lust for the same amount of time, right? I know those rumors about you sleeping with other people are bollocks. So what if this is the same kind of recoil, explosion, of emotions? Not what  _you_  want.”  
  
Harry slammed his head into the pillow. What did Draco  _want_? Harry had thought it was surrender. Fine, Harry had surrendered. He would lie back and let Draco fuck him, because that was what Draco wanted, and right now, also what Harry wanted. He wanted someone inside him, because he felt empty, because it would feel good, because he was lonely. You’d think that Draco would leap to take advantage of the opportunity.  
  
But, of course not. Of  _course_ not. Harry gagged on a flood of bitterness that welled up inside his throat like vomit. No matter what he did, what he said, how he tried to prove himself and what he wanted, Draco always wanted Harry to be something he wasn’t.  
  
“Fine,” he said. “If you won’t do it, then I’ll just have to do it myself.” And when Draco opened his mouth as if he was going to ask about that, Harry reached down and grasped his own cock.  
  
Draco stared at him for a second with his mouth open. Harry gave him a faint smile and began stroking. At least he could cause some emotion in Draco besides patronizing concern, then. That was nice to know.  
  
But it wasn’t enough, or it wasn’t fast enough, to ease the consuming heat racing through his body. Harry got his hand under the cloth and yanked and pulled, but it  _still_ wasn’t enough. He groaned and rolled over to rub against the sheets, and that wasn’t enough, either. He swore and drew his wand.  
  
Draco grabbed his wrist.  
  
“Will you  _stop it_?” Harry bucked as hard as he could under Draco’s hold. “You wouldn’t do anything about it, so it’s my right to do something. Or are you going to tell me that my cock belongs to you or something and I can’t masturbate?” he added, getting up on his knees so he could get some slack in Draco’s arm, and then flinging himself backwards as hard as he could.  
  
“I would like it very much if that was true,” Draco said, and moved with him, his wings beating, so that Harry was just lying on his back with Draco hovering over him again, the way he had been before. Harry could see advantages to that, and he tried to arch up so that Draco could do something  _useful_ for once in his life, but Draco again hovered out of the way, his eyes uncannily intense. “But it’s not. And I want to know what you’re feeling now.”  
  
The lust was banking and breaking in Harry like a wave, and he gasped and arched up again. Now it wasn’t even desire. It was just  _burning_ , and he rolled away from Draco and rode out the pain in as much silence as he could manage.  
  
Which wasn’t much. He seemed to have lost the knack of suffering in silence when he ended the magical control over his emotions. Instead he was sobbing brokenly in a minute, and gasping after that, and then the fire seemed to ease back and flood into some deep recess of his limbs where he couldn’t touch it. And Harry was left there weak and clear-headed, not knowing what the fuck had just happened.  
  
“It was what I thought it was, wasn’t it?” Draco asked a minute later. He was sitting on the bed with his head turned away, one hand tracing random patterns on the quilt. “It was a recoil from what you experienced before. A reaction.”  
  
Harry tightened his muscles in humiliation and closed his eyes. But Draco was still there, a breathing presence, and frankly, Harry was tired of retreating. That wasn’t the way he had done it when he was in Gryffindor, or on the Horcrux hunt, or any other time when there were responsibilities that he had to fulfill and he felt fully alive. This wasn’t the way he wanted to live his life, either.  
  
“Yes,” he said at last. “That has to be it. I was frantic, I wanted to fuck, and then—and then it was like it leaked out of me and didn’t come back.”  
  
Draco grunted quietly, and didn’t say anything for long enough that Harry wondered if he was going to at all. But then he had part of his answer, as he felt Draco’s hand in his hair.  
  
“You don’t have to be ashamed of it,” Draco said. “It’s amazing that you resisted as much as you did.”  
  
Harry rolled over so he could stare at Draco. “You had to prevent me from  _tearing my own cock off._  That doesn’t sound like resisting it to  _me_.”  
  
Draco gave him a gentle, pained smile, and reached out to wind his fingers around Harry’s. “But you didn’t do that. And you didn’t use your magic against me, do you realize that? You could have drawn your wand and flung me across the room—or maybe you could even have turned my foot inside out, the way you did before. But you didn’t.”  
  
Harry blinked. That was true. As angry as he had been at Draco just a few minutes ago, he hadn’t even thought of that.  
  
Still… “I don’t know that it was virtue,” he muttered. “After all, I was too lustful to think of anything but satisfying it.”  
  
Draco picked up his hand and held it to his lips. “Listen to your dominant Veela mate,” he said, in a prissy voice that robbed the words of any chance to sting. “If I say that you were brave and courageous, then you were.”  
  
Harry leaned back and managed to laugh a little. “All right. I can accept that. It’s easier—easier than to accept what might have happened.”  
  
Draco nodded. Then he leaned in and looked at Harry, and Harry’s breath caught. This wasn’t really hot, what Draco was doing right now, kneeling beside him and bringing his wings down so that Harry couldn’t see much else, but had to focus on Draco’s face and eyes. It was intimate, though.  
  
“Listen,” Draco whispered. “I want you to know that I  _wanted_ to. I haven’t wanted something so much since I first became your mate. But I’m going to do it when you’re in your right mind and want it, too—not when you can barely think or speak and you’re flopping around on the bed like a landed fish.”  
  
Harry stared for a minute, then lowered his head and managed to vent his feelings a little with a chuckle. “Not the most attractive description.”  
  
“Not the most attractive sight,” said Draco, and his hand tightened again.  
  
After a second, Harry rolled over and leaned his head against Draco’s thigh. Draco breathed in, his wings trembling and rising and falling over Harry, and then settled again and drew Harry tightly against his side. Harry smiled sleepily, and fell into the deep slumber waiting for him.


	29. Waiting and Wondering

“I suppose you  _do_ look better.”  
  
Harry smiled a little as he watched Hermione scan him from head to foot with doubtful eyes, and he reached out and pressed her hand. It was sweet of her to think she found a change in him, although Harry didn’t think it was physical.  
  
“Thank you,” he said, and turned around to look at the tables and chairs set up in front of him. Draco had moved away from his side and stood examining one of the murals that covered the upper room of the inn where they’d chosen to meet—the Flying Mongoose, on the outskirts of Ottery St. Catchpole. A mixed Muggle and wizarding village would make the people he needed to talk to feel more comfortable, Harry hoped. “Were they angry about being put off?”  
  
Hermione gave him a curious look. Harry was about to repeat himself and hope he made more sense this time, when Hermione shook her head and muttered, “You even said that differently than you used to.”  
  
“How did he used to say it?” Draco wandered back and put a hand on Harry’s shoulder, then leaned his chin on it. Hermione gave him a doubtful look. Harry couldn’t blame her for that, but he mouthed  _It’s okay_ at her.  
  
“With this intense—concern isn’t right, because it implies that he doesn’t care now,” said Hermione, and shrugged. “But with more emotion. As though putting them off could be a crime. As though—”  
  
“His political life was the center of his universe?” Draco asked.  
  
“That’s it,” Hermione said, and then stopped and stared at him. “What did you  _do_?”  
  
“Taught him better,” said Draco, and smiled at Hermione in a way that Harry knew meant he was enjoying every second of this. For Draco, it was justified revenge. He blamed her for giving Harry the bad advice that had led him to the suppression of his emotions and the bond at the same time.  
  
But Hermione had done the best she could at the time, and Harry didn’t blame her, either. He turned to Draco and said, “It’s okay,” aloud for everyone’s benefit, picking up Draco’s hand to kiss it. “You can stand behind my chair if you absolutely must, but I would really prefer if you sat down next to me.”  
  
Draco paused as if he was going to argue, then inclined his head with a slight quirk of his lips and sat down in the chair to the right of the head of the table. Then he extended a hand, and Harry snorted and came over to take the head position. Draco leaned his head on Harry’s shoulder and blinked innocently at Hermione.  
  
“No, seriously, what did you do?” Hermione demanded. “Even the best therapist can’t accomplish this much in so little time!”  
  
“It’s a good thing that we didn’t have to send Harry to a therapist, then,” said Draco, in his mildest voice, the one Harry knew he used when he wanted to fuck with someone’s head. “He just needed his mate.”  
  
“Tell me!”  
  
But for once, Hermione’s relentless desire for knowledge appeared to have met its match. Draco gave a long, sulky blink of his lashes. “But, dearest Granger,” he said, “you’re telling me that you want the  _details_ of the time Harry and I spent together? As mates?”  
  
Hermione actually started to answer positively. She was so caught up in things, Harry decided later, that her brain had probably identified the word “mates” with the one that Harry and Ron used when they talked about each other. Not the actual sense of “mates” that applied in this case. Hermione ended up turning a flushed and unbecoming color, and waving her hands around in front of her as though she worried that Draco was going to blast the details at her through them.  
  
“No, no! That’s okay!” She gave Harry a glance so embarrassed that Harry bit his lips so he wouldn’t laugh. “I’m glad you’re feeling better, Harry. And that, you know, you don’t have a problem with your bond anymore. That’s—it’s wonderful, really. I have to go and make sure the Huntleys know where to Apparate in, they always get that confused.”  
  
And she ran out of the room, in a way Harry didn’t think she’d done since she got pursued by Death Eaters during the war.  
  
“There,” said Draco, and sat back and nodded decisively. “We don’t have to worry about trouble from  _that_ quarter again, I expect.”  
  
Harry buried his mouth against the edge of the table before he felt he could laugh as hard as he wanted to. “She’s just trying to help,” he finally breathed out, when he sat up.   
  
“Of course,” Draco said. “But she can go and help the Huntleys. I don’t think we stand in need of more aid from that quarter.” His excessively formal language had already told Harry something was up, but Harry had to admit that he didn’t expect the hand that took his shoulder, gripped him, turned him around. “Do we?”  
  
Harry recognized the source of the demand in his voice, and managed to lower his head and look up through his lashes. That made Draco relax a little. He had already told Harry how cute he found it, in a burst of honesty yesterday, so Harry didn’t think it had anything to do with this being a “naturally” submissive gesture or anything.  
  
Which he was incapable of, anyway.  
  
“I don’t think we need Hermione to offer us advice on our love life, no,” Harry conceded.  
  
“Good,” said Draco, and glared around the room, empty except for them, as if he needed an audience to show off how special and exclusive he was with his mate.  
  
 _Maybe he can find one in the paintings,_ Harry thought, still amused, and then Hermione came in escorting the errant Huntleys and he switched professions. He could still be a negotiator and fighter for peace, he thought as he stood to shake hands. He just didn’t have to do it in the exact emotionless way he’d been going about it all along.  
  
And Ron looked approving, so even if Hermione wasn’t used to it, Harry reckoned he had the support of his friends.  
  
*  
  
Granger was right. Harry had changed, and although Draco had been there as part and agent of the change, he wasn’t entirely sure that even he understood all of it. It was like a miracle.  
  
Harry spoke and listened to the Muggleborn people, and some half-bloods, who came to the meeting and who were apprehensive about the way they would be treated if pure-bloods remained in power. He could control his impatience with what Draco thought were foolish objections far better than Draco could. Then again, Draco had never had training in listening to the opinions of others; if anything, his parents thought he would be better off knowing how to make people listen to  _his_ opinions.  
  
But there was none of that cold, focused intensity behind Harry’s words and eyes that Draco had noticed before. As if nothing mattered to him except the peace process, and nothing could be allowed to matter, because if Harry started thinking and caring about something else…  
  
He would have to question whether there was only one thing in the world he could care about, after all.  
  
Draco smiled. No, he would never have the kind of bond he had been raised expecting, because it would have required Harry not melting his obsession but switching it to Draco instead. But this was better.  
  
And by the end of the meeting, during which Draco did nothing but touch Harry heavily on the shoulder when he got exasperated by something, instead of growling at the stupid people, Draco thought even  _he_ might have managed to earn Granger’s approval.  
  
*  
  
“I do think that went well,” Hermione told Harry as they walked down the stairs of the inn. “After all, no one actually threatened you this time, unlike the last one.”  
  
Harry snorted. “The last two, if you count the duel with Maundy as a separate meeting.” He had to, if only for the significance of what had happened there.  
  
“That’s true,” said Hermione. “I suppose the holiday has been good for you in more ways than one.” She paused and eyed him for a moment. “Do you think that you’ll be able to handle the regular schedule of meetings again?”  
  
“I’m not going to make them as intense or as frequent as before,” Harry warned her. “I won’t abandon this, because it’s still important to me.” He turned around and watched Draco descend the stairs, his wings bent inwards so they didn’t brush the walls. “But as someone reminded me, I am allowed to have a normal life along with a political one.”  
  
“Of course you are,” said Hermione in a fierce undertone. “And I’m sorry that I ever implied otherwise.”  
  
“You were the one who meant to give me good advice, and I was the one who took it too far,” said Harry firmly. He thought listening to Hermione blame herself was just as agonizing as trying to go back to being the emotionless person he had been. “Stop.”  
  
Hermione looked at him in surprise, then laughed a little. “It has to be some time since you’ve spoken that bluntly to anyone.”  
  
Harry started to reply, but a soft voice interrupted him. “He spoke bluntly to me the last time we met. Harry. Can I talk to you?”  
  
Draco’s hiss started out so low that Harry honestly thought it was the hiss of rain falling outside for a second. Then it built to a roar, and he flew down the stairs and landed at Harry’s side, his wings spread and overlapping Harry’s body. Harry leaned against him, partially to support him and show him that Harry wanted him, too, and partially to keep him from flying any further at Daphne Greengrass, who stood just inside the inn’s door and watched them both with motionless eyes.  
  
“No,” said Harry. “It wouldn’t be a good idea.”  
  
“If you would let me explain,” said Daphne, “then I think you would understand both my family’s desperation and my desire to be forgiven for what I did.” She moved a sliding step closer.  
  
“Get her out of here, Hermione,” said Harry. He kept his voice steady and uninterested with an effort. But hey, he had learned  _some_ things well during those months when he had been the perfect politician. Not all of the effect he could have if he wanted to was due to his more human side being suppressed.  
  
Harry leaned back, full into Draco’s chest, blocking his attempt to take off, and let his head fall on Draco’s shoulder. Draco turned his head and sniffed at Harry’s ear. Harry laughed a little. The few pieces of whispered sex gossip he’d managed to pick up kept saying how hot it was when a girl let you nibble her ear. Harry just thought it was ticklish.  
  
“I’m with him,” Harry said pointedly to Daphne. He didn’t want to say something like he belonged to Draco, in case the Veela side of Draco got the wrong idea, but he would say this. It was true, now and a large part of it came from his own free will. “Go away. I’m not really interested in your explanation for why you lied and pretended to want political power instead of into my pants.”  
  
Saying it like that clarified his perspective and chased away any residual guilt he might have had over sending Daphne away abruptly. Yes, Daphne might not be to blame for everything, her mother and other family relatives might have had some part in things, too, but Harry simply wasn’t interested in the explanation. It was still a disgusting thing she had done.  
  
Draco’s claim on him had seemed silly at first, but at least he’d been honest about what he wanted. Harry was just going to always fight part of it, so they would have to compromise on the rest. He might have had an easier and more accommodating girlfriend in Daphne, but never one he could trust.  
  
“You could be with me,” Daphne began, and then Hermione came up and smiled at her. Only someone who stood in Harry’s position and knew Hermione would recognize the way Daphne rose up on her toes, and know that Hermione had her wand pressed to the middle of Daphne’s back.  
  
“I think we can talk about this more clearly outside,” said Hermione cheerfully, and escorted Daphne out the door with a hand clamped on her arm. Ron, who had come out of one of the lower doors and had taken in the situation at a glance, nodded significantly to Harry—and to Draco, Harry thought—and followed them.  
  
Harry blinked slowly and breathed out. A situation that he never would have dared spark before, for fear of causing a political incident, had unfolded simply and neatly around them, and solved itself.  
  
“See,” said Draco, and if his voice was mostly inhuman, containing a trill as he leaned over and licked the side of Harry’s ear, Harry could still understand what he said, which was the important part. “You are mine.”  
  
“The same way that you’re mine,” Harry retorted, turning around and getting that tongue, as tickling as that breath, away from his ear. “We’re mates and in this bond together. You’re not my dominant and I’m not your submissive.”  
  
Draco blinked for a long moment, wings fanning in a way that reminded Harry of a cat waving its tail. He must have fallen pretty far into his Veela mindset. Then he inclined his head slowly. “Yes,” he said. “That’s the way it is.”   
  
He took Harry’s hand and led them out through the back door of the inn, ignoring the temptation—Harry was sure it was a temptation—to go after Daphne and “explain” some things to her. Harry smiled a little and let himself be led.  
  
There were times that it was nice to have a Veela mate, he thought. At least they were balancing each other nicely now.  
  
*  
  
Draco had known his mother wanted to talk to him the minute he and Harry walked through the door of the Manor, but he had  _needed_ to spend time with Harry, to rest his cheek against Harry’s neck and try tickling his ear again and feel the span of his shoulders where no wings would grow and sit down at the same dinner with him. Besides, Narcissa had kept efficiently out of their way for the last week, and Draco knew that only the last three days, the time Harry had taken to recover, could be seen as her wanting to let the bond settle and affirm itself.  
  
She was working on something.  
  
When Harry was settled in front of a large pile of architects’ drawings that he would probably take forever to study anyway, Draco moved into the library where he knew his mother would find him. It was her favorite, small and private, the walls white as their peacocks’ feathers. Draco looked out through the window, curious if any of the pale birds were still in the gardens, but it was dark enough to be cold now, and the elves would have herded the peacocks into warm shelters.  
  
“I have found something you need to know about.”  
  
Draco turned around. He hadn’t even heard his mother enter, and he didn’t think it was because of some defect in his Veela senses. She was simply making a great effort to walk silently. He wondered what that meant.  
  
Seeing the sheen of honest excitement in her face, though, Draco had to smile. She at least  _thought_ that whatever she had discovered would please him. He nodded and escorted her to the couch in front of the fire, then summoned an elf and told it to bring her brandy. “Where have you been the past few days?” he asked, playing along. If the matter had been incredibly urgent, she would have told him the minute she came into the room. As it was, she probably wanted to indulge her sense of drama.  
  
“Speaking with Aloren, and some other Veela and experts on Veela.” If Narcissa had wanted to play with drama, the impulse seemed to be fleeting. She lowered the brandy glass to the table beside her and held Draco’s eyes for a moment. “After all, they are the ones who know the most about your situation.”  
  
Draco blinked, thrown. “Of course, but surely you’ve noticed that Harry and I are getting along much better now?”  
  
Narcissa touched his hand. “Of course. But you should not have to accommodate yourself to someone who will never be able to answer all your desires. I found a ritual. It’s not often used. It’s been forgotten, because of the nature of Veela bonds that were seen as destined.” She leaned towards Draco and lowered her voice. “It will let you substitute someone else for Potter—someone who will be conscious of the great honor of a Veela falling in love with them. Someone who will be submissive.”  
  
Draco stared at her.  
  
“Do you see?” Narcissa added, her voice rising in a thrill of triumph Draco might have given himself. “You can now have  _everything_ you want.” She touched Draco’s hand again. “And I don’t want my son to have anything else.”


	30. Chains and Chances

Draco stood there, lulled by the blinking of his own eyes to think that this wasn’t happening. His mother wasn’t sitting in front of him, looking at him with an excited, expectant gaze, and Draco didn’t have to think of a way to tell her that she had so violently misunderstood him.  
  
But she went on sitting and she went on looking, and Draco accepted that she wouldn’t accept it if he simply told her his mind had changed and he didn’t want a “normal” Veela bond anymore. He would have to explain.  
  
“I’m flattered you did all this work for me,” he said, and reached out to take her hands. “You said—this ritual was forgotten because people decided all Veela bonds were destined and—what? It would be folly to resist them?” His voice was dry and thin as paper, but his mother didn’t seem to notice.  
  
On the contrary, she beamed at him and nodded. “Yes. The bonds were once sometimes resisted and fought, you know. Apparently some people knew that the tie between them and another person was weak, or unflattering to them.” She laughed a little. “I wish we had retained that mindset. With it, we might have known at once that Potter wasn’t for you, and you should seek out someone else.”  
  
 _He is for me,_ Draco thought, with a vicious beat of his heart. If someone tried to take Harry away, he would rip their eyes out.  
  
“Draco? What’s wrong?”  
  
Yes, his hands had shifted almost to claws in his mother’s hold, and she gazed at him anxiously, not able to interpret his silence or the edge of agony he had taken on. Draco sighed and sat down beside her. He would have to pick his way carefully, not to hurt her feelings, but honestly, he thought she could recover from hurt feelings more easily than either he or Harry would recover from rejection.  
  
“I’m flattered you did all this work for me,” he repeated, and his mother wasn’t stupid. Already he saw the clouding in her eyes, the withdrawal back from him against the other arm of the couch. Draco held her glance anyway, and tried to show how much he loved her. “But Harry and I have changed. We’re growing closer. I understand him better now, and he’s accepted the bond. I don’t want to change him for another mate.”  
  
“I don’t understand,” said Narcissa, in the exquisitely polite voice of someone concealing her disappointment in a gift. “You don’t want a submissive mate? You don’t want someone who will place your every need and desire first?”  
  
Draco hesitated. That was the vision he had been raised with, the natural and shining one, and it was still attractive.  
  
But having to struggle with Harry had made Draco understand himself a little better. Yes, perhaps without Harry, that would have been the extent of what he wanted. Now, though, he wanted someone who could challenge him, fight with him, compromise with him. And he wanted Harry, with all the challenges of his past and his emotions flooding him like melting snow, and the tattered bond that was repairing itself.  
  
Draco tried to imagine touching someone else the way he touched Harry, kissing them, and recoiled. No faceless mate his mother could find for him would be better than Harry. Strange or not, that was the way it was.  
  
“I don’t want anyone else,” Draco finally said. “I’m at peace with my choice of mate. And I like him.” It might be a bit much to say that he loved Harry yet, although the boiling feeling in his chest did resemble it.   
  
“You could have anyone else you wanted,” Narcissa said.  
  
“Anyone else who was submissive and thought a bond with me was a gift,” said Draco, frowning. “Do you have candidates in mind? Because the only ones I can think of pale in comparison to Harry.” He was sure that his mother would want him to marry a pure-blood girl of one of the small number of families they knew, families similar to them both in status after the war and in wealth.  
  
And honestly, the only one Draco could think of was Daphne Greengrass. He shuddered and hissed at the thought.  
  
“I do not have a particular candidate in mind,” said his mother. Draco looked at her sharply. She had said the words with a little twist of her neck that he had learned to read, of necessity, in the days immediately after the war when she was talking about what had happened to most of the people they knew. The twist of her neck always meant she was trying, in some way, to soften the blow.  
  
“Mother,” Draco began, a hint of exasperation in his voice no matter how much he tried to hide it.  
  
“Her name is Camilla Hughes.”  
  
Draco had to search his mind for a moment before he found the name Hughes. They were pure-bloods, but they had gone to live abroad in Spain during the first war with the Dark Lord, and Draco knew none of their children had attended Hogwarts. Therefore, he couldn’t picture Camilla.  
  
But the name and the connection told him a lot, anyway. He was sure Camilla would be pale and soft and cold, and she would do whatever was necessary to please her Veela mate. She would probably be blond. Pliant. Draco could do what he liked with her in a way that he never could with Harry.  
  
 _And that’s not what I want._  
  
No, it wasn’t. Perhaps Draco would never know the exact moment that things had changed, but they had, and it was silly to go on pretending otherwise, just because he thought his mother would be disappointed if he didn’t.  
  
He faced Narcissa and shook his head a little. “I hope she finds a mate, and you find a way to make it up to her if you already promised me,” he said quietly. “But I’ve chosen the one I want to be with.”  
  
Only a slight narrowing of his mother’s eyes told of her real emotions. “You didn’t choose,” she said. “Destiny, or whatever name you want to give to the force that creates Veela bonds, decided for you. Does that seem like  _freedom_ to you?”  
  
Draco winced a little, but maintained his calm, stubborn gaze right into her eyes. “It didn’t once. Now it does.”  
  
“Because Potter has yielded a bit, and you want to fuck him,” said Narcissa, the words making Draco wince and rock back. He had never imagined curses like that coming out of her mouth. “Is that worth compromising your future happiness?”  
  
“Choosing anyone else would be compromising it,” said Draco. His hold on his temper was slipping a little. No matter how much he loved his mother, he couldn’t sit here and calmly listen to her insult his mate. He stood up and paced slowly back and forth, trying to relax his wings, which were snapping out to the sides. “No, I might not have been enthusiastic about having Harry bound to me at first, but I understand both the bond and him a lot better now. I can accept it.”  
  
“You should more than accept it,” said Narcissa. “You should  _rejoice_ in it. Camilla would.”  
  
“Can you be sure of that?” Draco asked softly, keeping his head turned away. “It was less than a fortnight ago that you started this research, if I go by when you started spending large amounts of time away from the house. How much time did you have to speak to her? To get to know her? To be so sure that she would please me?”  
  
“She is submissive and ready to be bound to a Veela,” said Narcissa, as if that was the only thing that mattered.  
  
Well, Draco would once have thought of it the same way. He had assumed the same things about Harry, and those had mattered a lot more to him than looks or their shared past or the personality Harry would bring into the bond.  
  
But he had—options now. That was the only way he could phrase it to himself. Why  _should_ he settle for anything less than the absolute best? And he knew that Camilla, as pretty as she might be, as pure-blood, as polite, wouldn’t give him the best. Harry would, if he could only convince his mother of that.  
  
Then Draco paused, and another thought raced softly through his mind and startled him into a new perspective.  
  
Why  _did_ he have to give his mother any convictions at all? This was his life she was talking about, and no matter how much she cared for him, she couldn’t live it in his place. Draco nodded and turned to her.  
  
“Don’t bring up Camilla again,” he said. “Please,” he added, when he saw her opening her mouth and knew she would probably be determined enough to simply keep going. “I appreciate you finding her. I hope she finds a dominant Veela to bond with. But I have my mate. That’s not going to change.”  
  
His mother didn’t argue back, the way he had thought she would. She only sat there with her hands folded in her lap and her eyes so distant and cold that Draco wondered if she had already dismissed him in her mind and gone hunting for some other distant goal.  
  
“Very well,” Narcissa said at last, and her voice crackled like burning paper. “If that is the way you wish to play the game.” She didn’t finish the sentence, but stood up and walked out of the room.  
  
Draco was left to stare after her, more than a little shaken, and wishing he knew what the hell she was  _thinking_.  
  
*  
  
“Mr. Potter. A word.”  
  
Harry turned around. Narcissa hadn’t sought him out for days and days now, and honestly, Harry had been disposed to regard that as a good thing. He knew she’d had a conversation with Draco the other day, but Draco had only turned his head away when Harry asked him what it was about. And Harry was learning how to be sensitive. He had pressed Draco’s hand and let him be.  
  
Narcissa, though, walked right up to him now, and her face was set in a peculiarly calm, business-like expression. She spread her hands wide and gave him the smallest of bows.  
  
 _All right, weird, but livable,_ Harry thought. He didn’t know the etiquette, though, so he nodded back instead of bowing. God knew that he had ended up in enough messes through not dealing with pure-bloods the way he was supposed to. He didn’t want to end up in a worse one by making a gesture that would make Narcissa think he was being more agreeable or generous than he felt.  
  
“I have come to you,” Narcissa announced, “because I think you care more about Draco’s happiness than he does.”  
  
“All right,” said Harry. He found himself looking around, expecting Draco to come flying into the room in a second. But Draco had said that he would be upstairs organizing a surprise for Harry, and begged him not to come up any sooner than his call. So Harry folded his arms and fixed his gaze on Narcissa and tried to act as he would when he was confronting a pure-blood who didn’t have anyone’s best political interests in mind except their own. “You have my attention.”  
  
“You know that he craves a mate who can give him everything,” said Narcissa, and her lips set in a flat line. “You have given him…much.” Harry could feel how that admission hurt her, almost wrenched out of her as though someone had caught it on a fishhook dangled down her throat. “But you cannot give him everything.”  
  
“What am I missing?” Harry felt as though he was falling into a pit that had opened up in the middle of his own stomach.  
  
“Perfect submission,” said Narcissa. “You know something of what he suffered during the war.” Harry nodded, half-unwillingly. Yes, he did, from his visions if nothing else. “He needs to be in control to make up for the times when he was not. And a mate who has never hurt him.” She cocked her head. “You have.”  
  
“You couldn’t guarantee that his perfect mate wouldn’t have been on the opposite side of the war,” Harry began, uneasiness rising.  
  
“I am not talking about that.” Narcissa seemed to rise and surge towards him without, in reality, moving at all. “I am talking about you flinging him into a certain library wall.  _After_ you became mates.”  
  
Harry tried to swallow, and found his throat soft and dry. He reached up, touched it, then dropped his hand back to his side. “Has Draco told you this?”  
  
“Not recently,” said Narcissa. “But I know his desires as he grew up, and people do not change so completely as to abandon all of those.” She turned her head to one side and kept Harry under observation like a bird. “And think of the way you have hurt him. Should someone who flings someone else around remain mated to them? Married to them?”  
  
 _No,_ Harry thought. His head was filled with the remembered aches of his own childhood, and his fervent wishes that someone would come and rescue him from the Dursleys. Of course, it wasn’t exactly the same thing, but it was similar enough, when he thought about it that way, to make him ill.  _I can’t…I can’t stay with Draco if I abused him._  
  
He had no justification for that little bout of lashing out at Draco, either. Draco hadn’t actively been trying to hurt or rape him, the thing Harry had feared as soon as he heard about the bond and understood the sexual nature of it. That meant Harry had been the abuser, the aggressor, there. He wondered why Draco hadn’t brought it up again, and then sighed. Of course. Draco thought they had no choice but to remain in the bond even when it was broken and tattered.  
  
“I have found a solution,” Narcissa whispered.  
  
It took Harry longer than usual to pull himself out of the darkness he had plunged into, so deep that it felt as if it was lapping over the exposed surfaces of his mind and icing them, and look at her. “What do you mean? I can’t change how I abused him.”  
  
“No.” Narcissa gave him a small smile that made Harry feel she was sympathetic to him, after all, at least a little. “But you can change things in the future so you never hurt him again.”  
  
Harry took a deep breath. “I think we’re on the track of that.” It made sense that Narcissa wouldn’t know since she wasn’t around much in the past few days. “I’ve—learned how to get along with him, and he’s accepting—”  
  
“Yes, victims often do.”  
  
Harry winced again. “I mean, he’s been accepting me as I am, learning about me,” he said. “It’s another means of ensuring that this never happens again.”  
  
Narcissa looked at him with the pity and understanding gone from her smile. “You understand  _nothing_ ,” she whispered. “You don’t grasp how humiliating it would be for him to have to crawl back to the person who abused him and beg forgiveness?”  
  
“He’s not doing that,” Harry said, a little hotly. “I’m not doing that. We can—we can talk about it and go on, now. We have a good enough relationship to do that.”  
  
“And  _I_ am saying, my son should not have to have a relationship of any kind with someone who abused him.” Narcissa’s knuckles were white enough to make the simple silver rings she wore, a form of adornment Harry had barely noticed, stand out like scars on her fingers. “I don’t care what you might have worked out. Think of him, for once, and not yourself and your lost freedom.”  
  
“But we can’t change the bond anyway,” Harry snapped. “We have to live with it as best we can.”  
  
“That is what I am telling you.” Narcissa laid almost the same emphasis on every word, standing tall and staring down at him. “I have found a means of changing the bond. Making someone else the submissive partner.  _Freeing_  the unsuitable one to live his own life.” She curled her lip a little. “Is that what you want?”  
  
Harry, astonishingly, found that it wasn’t. His first impulse was to say he wanted to stay with Draco, to see what the bond flourishing between them could become. Now that he had his curiosity and passion and anger back, that sounded like a preferable fate to going his own way alone, and maybe sinking back into the dullness that had been his political life before the bond.   
  
But this wasn’t about what he wanted, as Narcissa had pointed out. It really was about what was best for Draco. What if he was prolonging Draco’s agony by staying in this bond? Or what if—  
  
Harry’s breath caught. Yes, he  _saw._ Draco would say that he wanted Harry to stay no matter what, because the Veela’s longing for its mate was so strong. He wouldn’t think about the abuse, or Harry’s mood swings, or the way Harry had come so close to letting Draco fuck him and then lashed out. Harry’s happiness was the thing that mattered to him, so strongly that he would ignore the fact that  _he_  was miserable.  
  
Harry could only guard Draco’s happiness by an equal regard in the opposite direction, because Draco wouldn’t help himself.  
  
“Yes,” said Narcissa, who had followed his thoughts so easily that Harry had to wonder if she was a Legilimens herself. “You understand now.” She bowed her head. “I have found someone who would consider it an honor. Who would never hurt Draco, because she is properly submissive and not as strong magically as he is. Someone who could give him children. Will you listen to me?”  
  
Harry burned with reluctance. He wanted to stay with Draco. He wanted to see what happened next. It might be better than any of the options he had imagined.  
  
But…  
  
He had to do what was best for his mate, didn’t he? Not just what  _he_ wanted.  
  
“I’m listening,” he said.


	31. Giving Up and Giving In

Harry sat down at the dining room table two days after Mrs. Malfoy had told him the trth. He had to go back to thinking of her that way now, and not as Narcissa. It would be easier in the end.  
  
Harry rubbed thoughtfully at his chin. He needed to shave.   
  
And he needed, even more, to stop shying away from his problem instead of confronting it. Harry sighed and put his chin on his hand. He wondered how he was going to convince Draco, who didn't know what he needed most. Or who might have decided to ignore it for a while. Harry found that explanation more plausible than Narcissa's that he was crawling back to the feet of his abuser, honestly. Draco thought he wanted the slow bond he'd been building with Harry because he'd had to fight so hard for it.  
  
But a Veela bond wasn't supposed to be a fight. It was supposed to be a smooth and blessed union, the way Ron had told him.  
  
_Ron. Surely he would know something about this? He could tell me?_ Harry nodded and stood up. He would Floo Ron first thing, and Ron could give him some kind of confirmation of what Narcissa had said. Then Harry would manage to convince himself to proceed.  
  
_You'd think I would leap at the chance to be free of this bond when I fought for so long._  
  
But Harry knew that that wasn't the point. He had started to hope, in the last week, that this bond could be good for him, too, that he could finally have someone who saw him for what he was, not just the political animal or the hero or the Gryffindor or the abused child. It was hard to give up the fantasy of someone who would understand him and love him anyway.   
  
Well, of course he had his friends. Why did he need a fantasy when he had a reality?  
  
_It's not the same thing,_ said a part of him, but he tightened himself against that part. It was probably the same part that had told his relatives that what they did wasn't _really_ abusing him, it was only justified harsh treatment. He cast Floo powder into the fire and called out, "The Burrow!" It was usually where Ron was at this time of day.  
  
*  
  
Draco crept towards the dining room, his wings fluttering with every step he took. Harry had told him that he needed some privacy in the last few days, and Draco had held back and let him stay alone for hours at a time. Anything for Harry to begin relaxing and trusting Draco with the bond at last.  
  
But they had been apart for most of the day, and Draco needed to spend some time with him now. He leaned on the door to the drawing room, so it opened gently, giving Harry time to notice and not resent what could seem like a hidden intrusion. When he heard voices, he froze for a second, but relaxed when he recognized one of the voices as Weasley's. Weasley had been the one to encourage him and tell him a little of why Harry had resisted the bond. He wouldn't mind Draco listening now.  
  
"I don't understand, mate." Weasley's voice was low, wary, baffled. It made Draco's wings rise and fan around him, on guard instinctively. "If she told you this, why would you believe it? You've never been in the habit of taking advice from Malfoy's mum."  
  
Draco crouched on the floor without even thinking, wings raised above his head. His _mother_ had been speaking to Harry? When had that happened, why hadn't he known about it, and what had she said?  
  
Why hadn't Harry told him?  
  
"There was this one time," said Harry, in a light, brittle tone that rang false. If Harry had a flaw, Draco thought, it was that he was too serious most of the time. To hear him pretend to humor when he didn't feel it... "You know, the Forbidden Forest, the time she lied for me to Voldemort's _face_."  
  
"And you think that makes her trustworthy now?" Weasley sounded as though his sigh could blow away half his hair. "Listen, mate. I believe it when you say she told you that she'd do anything for her son. I don't believe you abused Malfoy."  
  
_Say what?_ Draco rose to his feet in a soundless wave of feathers. Harry, with his head in the Floo, didn't notice. Draco stalked towards him, moving lightly. This was a great enough shock to make his toes as well as his fingers turn into talons, and that would result in a clicking noise on the floor if he wasn't careful.   
  
He didn't want Harry to be soothed instead of startled by him, this time.  
  
"That isn't the way I thought of it, either." Harry's voice was low and miserable, the humor gone as if it had never been. Draco reached out in a gesture he was still learning to access and found the bond quivering between them with a dark silver liquid sadness. "But that's what I did. I used my magic to fling him across the library for the great _crime_ of being a Veela and bonding with me."  
  
Draco opened his mouth, although his screech was muffled down inside his throat. So that was how his mother had presented this to Harry. He wouldn't have believed anything else, but that he was an abuser, like the ones who had raised him, must be a vulnerable point.  
  
His mother was clever.  
  
But Draco was far angrier, and rage was what mattered right now.  
  
"Look, from what you said, that was what made him wake up and start listening to you." Draco empathized perfectly with the thick frustration in Weasley's voice. He saw a shadow gesture from within the flames, as if Weasley was holding out his hand to Harry, who probably missed it because he was kneeling with his head bowed like a penitent fool. "If Malfoy felt angry with you, he could have flown away. Or yelled at you, the way you said he'd done. He could have done lots of things to show you his displeasure without breaking the bond. Why do you believe what she _said_ rather than what he _did_?"  
  
At the moment, Draco would rather have liked to give Weasley a spare mansion.  
  
"It's because she said that he doesn't know himself that he was abused," Harry whispered doggedly. "You know, the way I refused to acknowledge for so long that what the Dursleys did was abuse? He doesn't want to admit it. But it's true. And I have to get myself away from him before I encourage him to sink further in his mindset."  
  
Draco decided that was enough of that. He only knew the decision because he stepped around the chair that had probably been partially concealing him from Harry's sight and scooped Harry up from the floor, moving him aside on his knees. Harry gave a squeak of surprise, and then stared up at him with sorrow draping itself like a cobweb over his features.  
  
Weasley gave a shout. Draco knelt down and put his head in the place where Harry had been, and said, "Excuse us, Weasley. I thought allowing Harry to proceed further in his false beliefs would be painful for both of us, so I removed him. I'm going to talk to him. You'll make my excuses to Granger if Harry was going to visit you?"  
  
"He wasn't," said Weasley, but there was a tight smile on his face and a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes. "He probably knew we'd manage to talk him out of his stupidity if he was right in front of us. Go ahead, mate."  
  
Draco suppressed the twinge of both amusement and pain that came from hearing Weasley apply that word to him, and nodded. "Good day."  
  
He cut the Floo connection and turned around to study Harry. Harry had stood up beside the chair. He was looking at Draco the anxious way that a Healer might when he was sick, or even the way his mother had looked at him during the symptoms of his last illness.  
  
Draco smiled. In his own way, he was going to enjoy this. He stood up himself, spreading his wings, flaunting them, his size and strength, the way that while he wasn't much taller than Harry, he was _bigger_ with his wings spread.  
  
"Were you ever planning to talk to me about your delusions?" he asked. "Or were you going to take even that power of choice from me under pretense of _rescuing_ me?"  
  
*  
  
_He's angry._  
  
But Harry had known Draco would be. It was one reason he had wanted to avoid a confrontation between them. He had wanted to ask Ron for advice about concealing his emotions from Draco long enough for Narcissa to perform the ritual or whatever it was she had found for parting them and transferring the bond.  
  
Ron had been horrified and told him he couldn't. Harry had tried to argue that with their bond as tattered and unsatisfactory as it was, it wasn't like he was making any grand effort, and Ron had pounced then and told him the bond _was_ real, and Harry sneaking around like this and making a desperate effort to deny it only said that the more.  
  
Harry had let himself get distracted with the ethics of the situation, and what exactly Narcissa had said to him, and he wished now that he hadn't. He had never got any advice from Ron, only refusals. As Draco stalked slowly towards him, Harry thought he could have used lots of advice right then.  
  
"I planned on doing the same sort of thing you would do for someone who was under the Imperius Cure and insisting he wanted to surrender all his worldly wealth to the person who cast the curse," Harry answered steadily. "I was going to keep it from you for your own good and make sure you were safe and happy in the end."  
  
Draco twisted his neck. "Safe. When I'd already refused this substitute mate my mother promised, no matter how pretty and blond and female?"  
  
Harry stared at him. "She talked to you about it?" Narcissa hadn't mentioned that at all, or at least only in the way that she'd said Draco refused to listen to reason about Harry's abuse of him. Harry hadn't envisioned a conversation about the method of ending the bond, only a general hinting of Narcissa's concerns that Draco had reacted violently to.  
  
"She did," said Draco. "Interesting it never got mentioned, isn't it?"  
  
Harry took a deep breath and resettled himself. So Narcissa had approached things in an underhanded manner. That didn't ultimately change things. "Safe from me," he said. "Because I did hurt you and you know it."  
  
"I acknowledge you hurt me," said Draco. "That's not the same as abuse."  
  
"It _is_." Harry leaned forwards. "If what I suffered while I was at my relatives' house is abuse, so is this."  
  
"Then have you _Obliviated_ me?" Draco asked, turning his neck again and arching his wings so the circle at the top of them seemed to wind around his throat. Distantly, hopelessly, Harry admired how beautiful he was. "Of all the times you've starved me and hit me?"  
  
Harry rolled his eyes. This was the way that Draco was irritating, he thought, or most irritating, out of all the _different_ ways that Draco could be irritating. "Abuse doesn't have to be exactly the same to be abuse," he said. "I meant they hurt me when they had a duty to care for me. And I did the same thing. Or at least I should have treated you decently like a human being," he added, when he saw Draco opening his mouth. "Not used my magic to fling you into a wall."  
  
"You didn't think I was a human being at the time," Draco murmured, provocatively. "You didn't think I was someone you had a duty of care to at the time."  
  
"No, but that just makes it worse." Harry wondered for a moment how they seemed to have switched positions and be arguing each other's side, but he knew Draco was trying to undermine Harry's position _now_ by quoting his original feelings back to him. "Ron tried to tell me what a great honor it was to have a Veela bond, and--"  
  
Draco blurred into the air. Harry tossed his head back, trying to see where he had gone, and found Draco's hands resting on his shoulders and his face bent down near Harry's neck, as if was seeking answers in the folds of skin there.  
  
"Listen to me," Draco whispered. "I know what I want. I _should,_ since I actually had to struggle and think about it instead of just settling into the perfect, mindless bond I always expected. And who I want is you."  
  
Harry caught his breath, but he remembered how much he had struggled to get the Dursleys to love him, even long after he should have given it up as hopeless. And that he felt remorse now and the Dursleys never would didn't change their respective positions. He had still hurt Draco. He didn't deserve a chance after that.  
  
"I have to let you go," he said. "You'll have a mate you can dominate, someone who can never hurt you."  
  
Draco snarled softly at him. "And I said before that my mother already approached me about this ritual, and even told me the mate she'd picked out for me. I said _no_. Are you going to insist I should have the ritual inflicted on me against my will?"  
  
Harry blinked and hesitated. That went along with what he had been saying about not obeying the directions of someone under the Imperius Curse, but on the other hand, when Draco was actually confronting him...  
  
"You had your will taken away from you when I turned out to be your mate," he said. "Can you really put up with this?"  
  
Draco drew back, his head cocked like a puppy's. "Then you agree with me?"  
  
"I mean, can you stand to have your will taken away from you because you're living with someone who abused you?" Harry asked, and reached up to frame Draco's face with his hands when Draco screeched at him. "I know it doesn't feel like that. But someday, you'll wake up and know the truth, just like I did with the Dursleys. And then you would hate yourself and me. You could say I'm leaving for selfish reasons, because I couldn't stand to see that day."  
  
"I could _definitely_ say that you're leaving with selfish reasons," Draco said, and his eyes sparked. "You agree I should have what I want?"  
  
"As long as it's good for you," Harry said cautiously, because he thought this was probably some kind of ploy to get him to agree that _Harry_ was good for Draco.  
  
Draco gave an awful, barking sort of laugh. "Of course," he said. "And when I say that your strength is good for me, that it's taught me to be more careful and thoughtful, and I understand you better than I ever thought I would understand anyone, and you make me a better person--that's reason enough for you to leave?"  
  
Harry tore his attention away and shut his eyes, turning his head to the side. Instantly Draco fitted his head alongside Harry's, so that Harry knew, if he looked again, they would seem to be gazing in the same direction.  
  
"You need what you desire," Harry whispered. "What a Veela should have."  
  
"You speak as if you think all Veela bonds are identically strong," Draco said. "The way I used to believe. What _happened_ to believing bonds could vary, and the individual Veela and humans involved could have different reactions?"  
  
Harry shuddered. It felt as though Draco had reached in and was playing expertly on the strings that tied his heart.   
  
But he couldn't give in, for so many reasons. Not the least of those was that he wanted so badly to do so. If he wanted it that badly, it _had_ to be a selfish desire.  
  
"Draco," he whispered through numbed lips, "how much did your mother tell you about this? Did she tell you that she felt I'd abused you?"  
  
"No," said Draco instantly. "Did she tell _you_ that? Or were you the one who brought up the word first, and she seized on it? Because that's what I suspect happened."  
  
Harry hesitated. He couldn't remember the conversation for a moment, but now that he thought about it...  
  
Draco nodded immediately, leaning in and peering at Harry's eyes as though they were lenses that would reveal the real Harry if he just looked through them hard enough. "She manipulated you. It's what she does. She wants me away from you. She may sincerely care about me. I think she does." For a minute, Draco's voice broke, and then he laid a hand delicately across Harry's cheek, stroking his skin without breaking it even though his fingers had become talons. "But she can't live my life. I'm the one who has to make the choice. And even if you abused me, if you could convince me to believe that, you're still the one I want for my mate."  
  
Harry closed his eyes. "If you regret it someday, that would be more intolerable than leaving you now."  
  
"Even though one is my _will_ and the other isn't?" Draco sounded as though he was choking on air.  
  
Harry blinked and looked at him again. "You don't want to be protected?"  
  
"Not from myself," Draco said. "Not from you. I can handle you if you ever turn on me again. And as for the past...I'm the only one who can say whether that was unforgivable or not. I'm the one who should make this decision."  
  
"That's what I wanted to believe," Harry whispered involuntarily, and winced a little from the sharpness of the gaze Draco turned on him. "But your mother sounded so serious, and she knows you so much better than I do."  
  
"Not in this," said Draco. "I fought for you to become my mate, and I _won't_ see that wasted. I have no interest in this Camilla Hughes she chose for me. I have interest in _you_."  
  
Harry closed his eyes again. It was hard to give up the belief that Narcissa had implanted in his heart, because he had wondered himself how Draco could forgive Harry for flinging him against the will. It had seemed simplest to believe Draco couldn't.  
  
But since when had things between them ever been simple?  
  
Harry raised a hand and laid it on Draco's cheek in turn. Draco made a happy, bubbling croon, and rubbed a piece of hair that felt feathery against Harry's fingers. Harry swallowed and touched Draco a little harder, a little more permanently.  
  
_For now, I'll try this._


	32. Holding Up and Holding On

"I find it interesting that you're still here, Mr. Potter."  
  
Harry turned around on the stairs, wincing. Draco had been the one who wanted to play this particular game, setting it up so that it looked like Harry was by himself and Draco was out of sight further up the stairs. He wouldn't leave Harry  _alone_ in front of his mother, of course, he had reassured Harry, as though he thought Harry was shaking in his boots from fear of Narcissa Malfoy.  
  
But Harry disliked the feeling that he was essentially helping to set Narcissa up.  
  
Draco had discarded that objection as so much rubbish, and while Harry understood why, it was still a tight, unpleasant ball of irritation coiling in his stomach as he turned around.  
  
"I thought about it," he said quietly. "And I decided that I need to talk to Draco before I make any decisions. After all, he's the one who's most involved here. It's  _his_ future that I'm abrogating it to myself to decide."  
  
Narcissa moved a single, quick step forwards, her head tilted back and eyes so wide it was almost funny.  _Almost,_ Harry reminded himself, and stood straight and still with some difficulty. Even though he found the way Draco had assumed he was afraid of Narcissa insulting, there was also some basis to such a fear. A  _little_.  
  
"You know I am going to bring his mate into this house in a little while, and yet you linger here." Narcissa shook her head in seeming wonder. "Do you like to torture yourself as much as you do other people?"  
  
Harry winced, but reminded himself that Draco was  _also_ the one who had to decide if what he had done in the library that day was worth the rupture of the bond. And Harry hadn't thought of it as abuse until Narcissa dripped the idea into his mind, and it had been the only way to get Draco to back off at the time.  
  
“I didn’t know you were going to bring his mate into the house in a little while, no.” Harry sincerely doubted  _Draco_ had known that. He shifted his weight so that he was standing braced in front of Narcissa, and folded his arms. It was for the best to appear at least a  _little_ defiant, and that way, Narcissa wouldn’t suspect any of the plans they had. “Does she know he has one?”  
  
“She knows that he was matched with someone who hasn’t managed to make him happy.” Narcissa’s voice was so low it sounded deadly. She had her head bowed, her hands rubbing back and forth as if she stood before a fire that didn’t really warm her. “How much more than that she may know, she will have  _discerned._ I have not  _told_ her more than that.”  
  
Harry felt his resolve harden. It did sound as though Narcissa was intent on picking what she thought of as the ideal mate for Draco, not someone who would actually be ideal. How could this Camilla Hughes, no matter how submissive or meek in temperament she might be, do anything right without knowledge?  
  
 _You managed._  
  
 _But I flailed around for a long time doing things wrong until I got some more knowledge,_ Harry answered that impertinent part of himself, and then replied, “It sounds like she’s walking into this totally ignorant. I’m sorry for her.”  
  
“She will be giving Draco  _what he wants_ ,” Narcissa said, and her voice rose slightly. Harry twisted his hand behind his back. He could feel the way Draco drifted to his feet at the top of the stairs, even though he was still shielded from anyone’s sight by the banisters. It felt a little, to Harry, like he was feeling a second heartbeat outside his body. “Someone who looks up to him, someone he can dominate—”  
  
“And that only proves that you haven’t listened to me for the past few weeks,” said Draco’s voice from behind them.  
  
Harry flinched a little at Narcissa’s widened eyes. For a moment, he was sure that he did see straight into her soul, and she was utterly stunned by the fact that she hadn’t given her son what he most wanted, and she reached out a hand as if she would clasp and hold his wrist. Harry would have encouraged Draco to go to her and reconcile if he’d thought it would do any good right now.  
  
Considering the way Draco flowed down the stairs and held Harry against him, Harry knew better than to suggest it at the moment.  
  
“I don’t want someone I can dominate, someone who will give in and do whatever I want because they’re afraid of me,” Draco said, and his voice was sterner than Harry had thought it could become. He rested his chin on Harry’s shoulder, his hands smoothing up and down as if he was cupping invisible wings Harry didn’t know he’d grown. “I want someone who fights me and challenges me and tells me that sometimes I can take what I want.”  
  
“Sometimes,” said Narcissa. She was looking so hard at Draco that Harry thought she wouldn’t notice if he slipped out of the room. But when he shifted, wondering if he should try it, Draco lowered his head and hissed into his ear.  
  
“You’re here. You’re part of this. You can’t pretend you’re not.”  
  
Harry wanted to say that he wasn’t a Malfoy and this should be between the people who were, but he knew how much that would hurt Draco. And he could never put into words what he meant, anyway. He nodded and stood still, and Draco’s hands smoothed once more down his shoulders before he lifted his head.  
  
“Sometimes,” Narcissa was repeating. Already her voice was clearer, and she cast Harry one eloquent glance that said how little she understood his attraction for her son. Harry forced himself to look blandly back. It was the only way he could leave the argument mostly between Narcissa and Draco for right now.  
  
“Why not all the time?” Narcissa asked, turning back to Draco. “Why not have what you want on every occasion, without struggle, without fight? You sound like a philosopher claiming that sorrow and suffering are necessary to enjoy happiness, but who complains when he has to go through the same sorrow and suffering. You may tell yourself that you’re happy with battle. Are you, after the war? Why do you want it?”  
  
That was a good question, Harry thought, and he turned, a little curiously, to see what Draco would say as a result. Draco’s tight hold still let Harry face him, and he would have been disturbed if Draco was clasping him too tightly for that, honestly.  
  
*  
  
 _He has no idea what he means to me._  
  
But Draco couldn’t fault Harry for that. Their past, and Harry’s treatment at the hands of those disgusting Muggles, and being used as a sacrifice and rubbish bucket by the entire wizarding world, had a lot more to do with Harry’s withdrawal than a deliberate attempt to irritate Draco or keep himself away.  
  
Draco stroked Harry’s cheek and shoulders for a second and held his eyes, simply smiling. Then he turned to Narcissa and responded, “I want the struggle because it’s the best way to ensure that Harry gives himself to me.”  
  
“And why do you want him?” His mother had a lot of poise, which was probably fooling Harry at the moment. You had to know her well, the way Draco did, to see how she felt as if she was standing on sliding, cracking, thinning ice. “Only because the Veela bond suggested he was destined for you. You would never have paid attention to him if not for that.”  
  
“But that the bond suggested him to me means I do want to pay attention,” Draco said calmly. He smoothed down Harry’s shoulders again, and put a hand in the middle of his chest, feeling the heartbeat that surged and danced there. Harry wanted badly to be out of the middle of this situation.  
  
 _Why? He shouldn’t be afraid of either me or Narcissa._  
  
Draco disregarded the question for the moment, but he would want Harry to talk to him, to be open with him, when this conversation was done. Keeping things from Draco resulted in situations like this one with Narcissa that they were still struggling through.   
  
“It’s only a bond,” said Narcissa. “It can be replaced by another, and you will be so happy with Camilla.” Her hands didn’t work over each other, but they clasped each other hard. Draco knew it was only her formidable self-control that kept them still. “I have seldom met someone so charming, Draco. You couldn’t help loving her, bonding with her.”  
  
“She sounds like Daphne,” said Draco honestly. “Someone who wants to replace my mate in some way, someone who’s pure-blood and should know better. If she’s all that submissive, she should also believe in nature destining one Veela to a mate, and I have to wonder why she doesn’t think that way.”  
  
“She knows that sometimes things need to be corrected, and we cannot leave nature to take an unruly course.” Narcissa already seemed to have calmed down again. Draco wondered why for a moment, until Narcissa turned towards the front door and added, “And she is here to make the case in her own voice, which she hopes—and I hope—you will listen to.”  
  
Even as Draco turned with his wings ruffling up and an angry hiss creeping down his throat, a pale woman stepped through the door and sank into a low curtesy on the floor. She wore white, a lace gown that challenged her face for color. She bowed her head, and long wan gold hair swept forwards around her face and brushed the floor.  
  
“My lord,” she said, her voice as colorless as the gown. She didn’t move, and she didn’t look up. “I can only pray that you will accept me. I think you can offer me more than any other dominant Veela would.”  
  
And Draco had his answer, right there. When was the time that a pure-blood who should know better would neglect their cultural knowledge and do something this stupid and self-destructive? When they stood, or thought they stood, a chance to gain something out of it, something so important and special that any outrage they created would be nothing to it.  
  
He wished she would look up. If she had only seen his face, she would have known there was no chance he would accept it, and she would have gracefully retired.  
  
“Don’t you think  _I_ ought to be consulted?” Harry asked.  
  
His mate’s voice was soft, mildly curious, not outraged. For a second, Draco started to draw back upstairs in hurt. He wanted to demand why Harry was suddenly so resigned to losing him.  
  
Then he realized that the tension beneath his hands hadn’t diminished at all. Instead, Harry felt as if he wanted to explode away from Draco and grow wings of his own to do it, because his own leap wouldn’t carry him far enough.  
  
Draco smiled, a little, and nestled his head against Harry’s neck, content to watch and let his mate have some part in determining how this conversation went, too.  
  
“Yes,” he said. “We didn’t have the decency to wait until you were out of the room, did we? So let’s have your perspective.” He squeezed Harry’s shoulder encouragingly.  
  
*  
  
 _I can do this. Despite my own misgivings._  
  
Camilla Hughes really did look a lot like Daphne, but that was only one of the things that was unbalancing Harry. Honestly, the worst was the frozen look on Narcissa Malfoy’s face as she looked at Draco.  
  
No matter how strongly he wanted to stay right where he was, Harry couldn’t bear to ruin Draco’s relationship with his mother. Family was  _important_.  
  
On the other hand, there was a bare chance he could save that relationship, which was what had inspired him to speak up in the first place. Desire for his own comfort couldn’t motivate him enough. If he could help Draco, though, he would do anything he could.   
  
“I’ve already changed Draco’s thinking,” he told both women, although he didn’t know if Camilla was listening to him, or looking at anything except the pattern of the tile beneath her feet. He did gain confident as he went on speaking, though. No, Draco wouldn’t want someone that meek. Not anymore. “So you should have spoken to him before I got that far. Now it’s too late.”  
  
“You’ve altered it with a spell,” said Narcissa. “That I know.” Camilla’s shoulders lifted once as if she was trembling.  
  
“No,” said Draco, in a growl high enough that Harry was sure that it was going to become a screech at any second.  
  
He was also sure that he couldn’t stop that, though, so all he did was reach a soothing hand backwards. Draco grabbed it in his teeth. It felt as though they had a sharper edge than normal. His mouth was probably transforming into a beak.  
  
Harry didn’t try to take his hand back, though. He trusted Draco not to hurt him. “I haven’t,” he said. “You know I didn’t want this at first. I might have tried a spell to get  _away_ , but not to make Draco want me. And anyway, I didn’t want to do any magic that might be interpreted as rejecting the bond, because I wanted to keep him alive.”  
  
“This is a matter that must be settled before things can proceed the way they should,” said Narcissa, as if she was trying to deal with a legal affair and make the rest of them think she was, too.  _Hell,_ Harry thought, eyeing her,  _she probably would have preferred a legal affair to this. Something she could classify and it would_ stay  _classified_. “You can have the freedom that you wanted, Mr. Potter. And my son will have what he desired. And Camilla will have what  _she_ desires.”  
  
Looking at Camilla, Harry wondered how Narcissa could be so sure that Camilla wanted anything at all. She resembled a breathing statue, crouched there, and that was the end of it. Harry looked back at Narcissa.  
  
“And Draco?” he asked. “If he tells you that he wants me now, and not the picture-perfect mate he was raised to expect, how long will it take you to believe him?”  
  
Draco’s hand settled on his throat, gently drawing his head backwards. Harry let it happen, his eyes on Narcissa. He would have worried about looking weak in front of her, but he knew she wouldn’t take this as weakness. If anything, her eyes widened the more the more she watched them.   
  
“I want him,” said Draco. His voice was so sensual that Harry half-closed his eyes. There were things Narcissa needed to see, and things it would do her no harm to see, and…  
  
Things she didn’t need to see, that was all.  
  
“You had never been with another male when the bond chose you, Mr. Potter,” said Narcissa. “What makes you think that you will want to be with one now?”  
  
“Because Draco’s fought to defend me, and he cares about my safety, and it feels good when he touches me,” said Harry, so honestly that he felt Draco wince a little behind him. Well, Harry wasn’t good at lying, and he also didn’t think he could put it in more eloquent words than that. “And he’s tried to get along with my friends, and he’s done special things with me, and he tries to compromise instead of order me around all the time. I can be with someone who respects me and someone who attracts me.”  
  
“What attracts you has nothing to do with sex?” Narcissa looked now as though she had opened a door to a room in her house and found it replaced with a tossing ocean.  
  
“I told you that you didn’t know much about me,” Harry said, and smiled at her. He kept to himself that  _he_ hadn’t known that much about his own preferences, until he started realizing that he didn’t think of having sex with Draco—even when he had thought it would be painful and boring—as disgusting. He didn’t object to men as much as he’d thought he would.  
  
“And my son prefers,” said Narcissa. She left the sentence there.  
  
“I prefer Harry,” said Draco, and his hands curled harder around Harry’s neck and shoulders, and he leaned forwards, over Harry and towards his mother. “I prefer  _my mate_.”  
  
His mother looked back and forth between Draco and Camilla, her hand for a moment tapping her fingers away so distractedly that Harry found the rhythm irritating. Then she said, “If you will not agree to a perfect arrangement, on your head be it. You will be stuck with one less than perfect.” She snapped her fingers at Camilla.  
  
The girl stood and walked out of the entrance hall. The whole time, she didn’t say one word. Harry shivered, feeling sorry for her. He wondered if her parents, or whoever else she lived with, had given her an actual choice about coming with Narcissa, or not.  
  
Or did she just do whatever someone else told her, as the kind of automaton that Harry had once feared Draco wanted?  
  
At least Draco was suppressing his own shudder behind Harry. That meant he was even less interested than Harry had assumed he was. His hands tightened protectively on Harry again. Narcissa was looking at both of them with a dim light in her eyes.  
  
“You want me to leave,” said Narcissa, at last.  
  
“I don’t want you to leave the house,” said Draco, because Harry had reached back and squeezed his arm just then. “But I want you to  _understand_. Harry is  _mine_. And I won’t be accepting any substitute.”  
  
Narcissa said nothing. But she stood there a moment before she turned and walked away. Harry supposed that was progress, of a sort.  
  
He turned and began to speak to Draco, but Draco kissed him before he could.  
  
Harry gasped and lifted his hands, gently encircling Draco’s wrists, but didn’t try to stop him. He knew Draco needed this right now, and from the intent, almost frightening way Draco ravished his mouth, he might also need it so he didn’t fly after his mother or the hapless Camilla. His tongue was everywhere, and Harry’s head spun by the time Draco drew back and whispered to him. Harry had to concentrate to make out what he was saying.  
  
“I need you close to me. To stay with me, after they tried so hard to get you away from me. Come?”  
  
It was still a question, at the end. Harry nodded, and smiled at him, and accompanied Draco up the stairs. Draco practically hovered over him, his wings drumming.   
  
Harry, mouth heavy and full of sweetness, and knowing Narcissa wouldn’t lose her son or Draco his mother, didn’t mind.


	33. Privacy Assumed and Prayers Answered

“What do you want?”  
  
Draco’s voice was soft and fervent. Harry flushed a little. Draco had taken him into his rooms and seated him on the bed, which he had redone with a blanket that was the perfect shade of blue and pillows contoured to Harry’s body. That was part of the surprise he had been setting up the other day, when he had left Harry alone and Narcissa had found him.  
  
This time, though, Harry didn’t think he would be satisfied or put off with a redecorating project. He was leaning over in front of Harry, his wings twitching and arched so as to show off the softly glowing grey undersides, his eyes so focused that Harry blushed harder. It wasn’t anything Draco had done or said that caused that. Harry just wasn’t able to sustain that intensity of looking, which made him feel as though someone was running a slow, gentle, persistent hand all over his body.  
  
“Um, I want you near me,” Harry said. He wondered if that was the right thing to say. Did Draco want him to ask for a rare food or coins or his own personal house-elf? But Harry was still getting used to this business of wanting things and telling other people about them, and those were the words that popped out of his mouth.  
  
At the very least, he realized as Draco’s eyes brightened and he crooned, he’d made his Veela happy. Draco curled up on the bed beside Harry, turning his head so he could suckle a bit on Harry’s fingers. Harry spread out his hand and let him do it. He was losing his blush little by little, as he realized that Draco was also feeling this intensity floating between them, no matter what it was.  
  
Then Draco rolled to the side, his wings arching more so they didn’t get crushed against the pillows, and spread his arms. He seemed to be holding his breath.  
  
Harry knew why. It wasn’t so long ago that he would have refused the embrace, or perhaps worse in Draco’s eyes, only gone along with it because Draco needed him to. But now he could honestly cuddle closer with a sigh of his own desire, and Draco’s wings fell gently and draped over him like huge leaves.   
  
Draco breathed out against his neck. Harry stirred and shivered. Draco stroked his arms and shoulders with gentle hands, and drew him closer still, until Harry’s whole face was under the feathery wings.  
  
Harry tensed. Draco shifted the feathers a little so Harry could see a slit of light and air between them. Harry relaxed again. It was really only feeling as though he was completely shut in that he minded. Otherwise, Draco could hold him and Harry would happily go along with anything he wanted.  
  
“You’re so perfect for me,” Draco whispered, and rolled them slightly so Harry was flat on the bed and Draco was leaning over him, although still with a wing wrapped about his shoulders. “I never would have known how perfect if I’d let my disappointment control my reactions and keep me from being happy with you.”  
  
“Well, there’s a difference between perfect and good,” Harry felt compelled to point out. “I doubt if perfect mates would have fought all the time.”  
  
Draco flicked his hand as if to dismiss Harry’s concerns. “What matters is that we found our way to each other, and I don’t think anyone ever needs to try and take us apart again.” His wings folded gently in, and Harry could see the savage flickers in his eyes. “No one had _better_ try to take us apart again.”  
  
“I don’t think most of them will,” said Harry. “I mean, my friends don’t want to, now.” Draco’s wings stirred for a second, as if he would disagree about Hermione, but he didn’t, and Harry went on. “Your mother seems to understand that it would be stupid of her to interfere.”  
  
“She doesn’t give up easily,” Draco said, and Harry thought it was disagreement until Draco stretched out and put his chin on his shoulder, lying on top of Harry like some huge, lazy, warm cat. “But she also doesn’t take well to conquest and humiliation. I think she would be more upset about having the story spread around than letting you stay with me.”  
  
“I didn’t mean to humiliate her,” Harry muttered, shaking his head. “And I won’t tell anyone. Do you think I should tell her that?”  
  
“No,” said Draco firmly. “It’ll do her good to believe that you  _might_  for a while, and that will keep her from making up any more plots.” He paused, and shifted on top of Harry. Harry spread his arms a little, wondering if Draco was trying to get comfortable. He didn’t know what else to do to hold Draco better, though. He was pretty thin and bony, and that was his fault.  
  
 _No, the Dursleys’ fault._  
  
Draco looked down at him as if he’d heard the thought, but he only ran a hand gently around Harry’s chin and up around his ear. Harry closed his eyes and sighed. He loved the warmth leaping and beating between them, and wondered if he could fall asleep like this.  
  
“Harry,” Draco breathed.  
  
“What?” Harry squinted back at him. Something important was happening, he thought, or at least important to Draco, from the rapt way he stared at Harry. But Harry honestly didn’t know what it was. He tried to open his eyes wider, tried to seem more alert and attuned to what Draco needed from him.  
  
“Could—could I have you? A bit of you?” Draco reached out and tugged on his hair. Harry rolled in the direction of that, startled by the spark it sent down his spine and into his belly.  
  
Draco, from his sudden stillness, was sensing that spark, and was more than intrigued. He ducked his head down, and his croon was deep and  _interested_. Harry felt his face flare up a little, but he had to swallow and remind himself that he had shared more embarrassing things than this with Draco, and Draco had shown no intention of making fun of him because of them.  
  
“What do you mean?” Harry whispered back.  
  
“Further than kisses,” Draco said at once, and ran the hand that had been in Harry’s hair down Harry’s neck instead, around the curve of his shoulder, cupping and stroking as though he wanted to admire the muscle.  
  
Harry swallowed, remembering the tide of lust that had overwhelmed him before. What if that happened again? He honestly wasn’t sure sometimes what was him, and what might be repressed instincts coming to the surface, and what was the Veela bond.  
  
“We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Draco added, drawing back and regarding him with a patient look.   
  
“But it would disappoint you,” Harry murmured, and reached up to touch Draco’s chest, laying one hand flat over his heart. The steady pounding there told him the truth. Draco’s heartbeat was pretty fast, but not always like that. Harry ought to know it by now.  
  
“Not as much as forcing myself on you would.” Draco caught Harry’s hand and kissed him in the middle of the palm, his gaze searing.  
  
“I know,” said Harry, and thought about it some more. Draco hovered above him, much more patient than Harry had thought he would be, watching Harry out of fathomless eyes.  
  
Harry thought about the way Draco had stood with his arms around him when they were confronting Narcissa, and how much he had liked it, and how he had  _wanted_ to come upstairs and be private with Draco. If Draco hadn’t suggested it, then Harry would have. He wanted to be with Draco. He  _liked_ being with Draco.  
  
And he thought he could change a few things about the way they were together, and not panic.  
  
He looked up, caught Draco’s eye, and nodded. Draco promptly sat up. Harry blinked, wondering if he was going to withdraw in offense because Harry hadn’t framed his approval with the right traditional words, or if he was going to get lube, or what.  
  
None of those things, he saw a second later. Something  _different._  A white light shone behind Draco’s head for an instant like a halo. Then it glided, shimmering, down his arms, and his hair took fire, and his wings were beating and fanning the light over Harry. It was intensely warm, but not so much like a fire as like sunlight. Harry choked and rolled his face towards it.  
  
“ _Mine_ ,” Draco whispered.  
  
“Yes,” Harry echoed, near-mindless. God, that light felt  _good_. He spread his hand out, and it felt exactly like the few carefree moments when he’d sometimes lain on the grass at Hogwarts, in the sun, and all he’d thought about was being alive.  
  
Draco bent down and covered his face with delicate kisses. Harry wasn’t entirely sure that he was using his lips for all of them, because his large white wings were beating like a hummingbird’s, and it sometimes felt as though their tips were kissing Harry’s face, too.  
  
“So mine,” Draco said, and there was something like a sigh at the back of his voice now, as if he wished to spend ages contemplating Harry. Harry wished he would. At least, as long as he kept kissing like that.  
  
But then Draco reached down with one hand, although he never took his intent eyes from Harry, and Harry heard the sound of ripping cloth. That was sufficiently unexpected to make him arch his neck and turn his head.  
  
Draco was stroking Harry’s trousers off, with his claws. Harry couldn’t feel an inch of their sting, but down and down they went, and with them went his trousers. Harry watched in fascination as Draco neatly slit them off, and then pulled the ruined cloth away with a jerk that seemed to float Harry back into the air and down on the bed again. It was just, one moment he was lying on top of those ruined trousers, and the next second, he wasn’t.  
  
“Wow,” Harry breathed.  
  
“Yes, Veela can do some remarkable things,” Draco said, in a deeper voice than before, and Harry’s eyes snapped back to his face. Draco’s own eyes were deep and dark and wonderful, shining like pools of water under shade. Harry leaned up and kissed him, and Draco kissed him back, and got rid of his pants in the same way as the trousers.  
  
Harry arched up. This was no mindless wave of lust now. He was very  _aware_ of where Draco’s eyes were looking, and he was blushing endlessly, and he didn’t think the blush was going to go away any time soon.  
  
But the point was, the  _point_ was, that he felt wonderful while he was doing it. And he wanted Draco to see more, to touch, to taste, to  _take_.  
  
 _Mine,_ he thought, putting his hand out to touch Draco’s hair at the same moment as Draco bent his head, and then Draco’s mouth was wrapping around him and heat flared like a coin flipping in radiance through Harry and he had other things to think about.  
  
*  
  
It was more than obvious that no one had ever done this to Harry.  
  
Draco sucked hard, reaching out and behind Harry, touching his inner thighs and his balls and his hole, trying to see what he liked. The answer seemed to be  _everything_. Harry was panting, jerking, crying out raggedly, and he was doing it every time Draco touched him. At one point he grabbed Draco’s hand and slid it firmly back onto his arse.  
  
Draco smiled, and cupped him there while he sucked harder. Harry’s head fell back onto the pillow in answer. His eyes were rolling when Draco saw them again, his eyelids fluttering constantly, his breath coming more softly now, but no less urgently.  
  
And then Draco felt a surge of arousal and pleasure in his chest that nearly made him let Harry’s cock fall out of his mouth.  
  
Harry whined and lifted his hips. Draco bent down, gave him a soothing lick, and began to suck again, even as he realized what it was.  
  
The bond had come to life, for more than a flash—because now Draco could feel the pleasure pulling like a cord all down the middle of his chest and up towards his neck. He could feel his own mouth around his own cock.  
  
He could feel, too, a hand on his arse. He flexed his fingers experimentally, and other than an increased pitch in Harry’s cries and a wriggling that let him know how much Harry liked that even without the bond, he felt the sharp pressure of fingernails on bare skin even though  _he_ was still wearing his clothes.  
  
 _This is the right thing to do. We both like it, and we can both feel it. This isn’t misguided lust because Harry has been suppressing his emotions._  
  
The confirmation of a rightness he had never expected to feel once he realized what kind of mate and bond he had made Draco bend down and suck so hard that it felt as if his teeth were going to fly down his throat. But it was exactly what both he and Harry had been waiting for.  
  
Harry writhed and snatched at Draco as if in warning, but then he came, and he didn’t have time to try and make Draco withdraw. Draco was glad of that, because it wasn’t as though he would have paid any attention anyway.  
  
The sensation of a hard, wet mouth drawing on him made him convulse and spill on the bed, flying specks of liquid crossing over with Harry’s orgasm. The bond gave a final flicker and faded out, as though it couldn’t sustain itself outside of that moment of intense emotion.  
  
Draco didn’t mind. He was content to know that the bond  _existed,_ now, and wouldn’t simply go on in that tattered state Aloren had described to them forever. It would come back. Draco could summon it back.  
  
“Did you feel that?” Draco couldn’t help whispering, though, leaning his cheek against Harry’s and wrapping his wings around them both. The light that he had started radiating when he realized Harry wanted him was gleaming and flapping around them both like a cloak blowing in the wind now. Draco concentrated, and it calmed down. Draco was glad. He didn’t want to walk around like some kind of glowing  _Lumos_ ball. That light was meant only for his mate, to soothe and relax him, or tell him that Draco was also ready to mate.  
  
“Feel like I had two cocks and a mouth on both and two arses?” Harry breathed. “Yeah.”  
  
Draco hadn’t actually expected an answer, if only because he had thought Harry would be too far gone to notice, and he bowed his head further and kissed him. Harry kissed back in exhaustion, his tongue slowly pushing at Draco’s. If he noticed and objected to his own taste, he didn’t say anything about it.  
  
He did reach down and trace a line lazily through the mess on Draco’s thighs. “Next time,” he said, “I want you to let me take care of that.”  
  
“If I don’t come from the sheer pleasure of having you ask,” said Draco. He could feel a surge in his body that would have led to a repeat performance immediately if his mate was also ready. “You’re sure?” It would have been fairly easy for Harry to think of a woman giving him a blowjob if he wanted to, but it would be a lot harder to pretend that his mate wasn’t male once he had a cock in his own mouth.  
  
“No, I asked because I’m planning to go out and make a comparison to Ron,” said Harry, and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Draco, I want to. The same way I wouldn’t have said that I did want to do more than kisses if I wasn’t sure.”  
  
Draco did have to hiss a little at the way Harry had talked about sleeping with Weasley, even if he knew it was a joke. Harry rolled over, looking put upon, and hooked an arm around his neck. Draco found himself rather suddenly lying on top of Harry, his wings spread out and flailing instead of arching into a gracefully protective tent around his mate.  
  
“Listen,” said Harry gravely. “I don’t want anyone other than you. Maybe I would have, if you’d been later in coming to lay claim to me or if I hadn’t had a war to preoccupy me. But now I don’t. Okay?”  
  
And he flicked Draco on the nose.  
  
Draco had to hold still for a second before he could find the appropriate response. He would have known what to say to a mate who was talking seriously about staying with him, or to one who was reciprocating his love, but jokingly. He didn’t know how to handle both at once.  
  
Harry smiled suddenly. “And that’s why I’m good for you,” he said. “I push you. Make you stretch your boundaries and have to live with new situations that challenge you.”  
  
“You—you read my thoughts,” Draco said.  
  
“And why not?” Harry shrugged at him and pulled and prodded him across the bed until Draco was lying in another position that was evidently more comfortable for Harry, from the way he immediately snuggled up against Draco’s side. “We have a bond, don’t we? If it can come to life for sex, it can bloody well be useful other ways.”  
  
Lying with his wings half-crushed in this new and improbable position, his nose smashed against Harry’s shoulder, Harry’s arms uncomfortably tight around him…  
  
Draco never wanted to be anywhere else.


	34. Pure-Bloods and Positioning

“Harry? I’m sorry to disturb you, but I think this is something you need to see right away.” Hermione was already moving through the Floo of Malfoy Manor as she spoke.  
  
Harry looked up and nodded. Honestly, he wasn’t going to hold Hermione back if she thought that, although Draco shifted restlessly behind his chair, wings spreading. His hand wavered on Harry’s shoulder for a moment, as though he was considering whether he should pull it back to spare Hermione’s sensibilities.  
  
Harry grabbed it and held it there. Draco’s fingers flexed, and the slight hint of prickling talons Harry had felt vanished. Draco bent his head down next to Harry’s face and crooned softly. Hermione waited until he was done, which Harry flashed a smile at her for as he held out his hand. Hermione was carrying a thick sheet of parchment.  
  
It had a silvery seal at the bottom of it that Harry didn’t recognize, a swan in crown and chains. On the other hand, he hadn’t recognized the mark of Maundy’s little dueling club, either. He looked up at the top.  
  
 _So settled by the pure-bloods in Britain that Harry Potter is a threat to the pure-blood way of life._  
  
Harry rolled his eyes. “Except the ones who have come to the meetings, and the ones who support me, and the ones I’m living with,” he muttered, and held out the letter so that Draco, bending over his shoulder, could see it. Hell, Harry would have had trouble reading it at this point no matter what, because Draco’s wings were casting it into shadow.  
  
“What nonsense,” said Draco. “Although perhaps my mother would agree that you’re a threat. Just not to the pure-blood way of life.” He brushed his wing back and forth over Harry’s head, feathers rasping into his hair. “Unless the life of one house counts.”  
  
Harry grinned, and, as Draco’s wing had moved, turned back to reading the letter.  
  
 _The threat must be met. Harry Potter is directed to appear at a meeting at Stonehenge at noon on the first of the month._  
  
“Can you get any more typical of what Muggles think of you?” Harry asked, with a shake of his head and a sigh, and he passed the letter up to Draco, who was looking impatient to read the rest.  
  
“This is a serious matter, though, Harry,” Hermione said. She was wringing her hands, and looking back and forth between him and Draco as though she expected Draco to break into screeching at any moment. He probably would have, Harry had to admit, before they started to understand each other and Draco had realized that not every threat to Harry was a threat to his life. “I mean,” Hermione continued, drawing Harry’s attention back to her, “they speak for almost all the pure-bloods in England.”  
  
“Not me, and not mine,” Draco said decisively, putting the letter down. “I’ve never seen that seal before, and it’s the kind of thing my father would have made sure I knew.” If he saw the way Hermione flushed and stood a little straighter at the mention of Lucius Malfoy, he’d obviously determined to ignore it. “They don’t have shit to say about my bond with Harry.” He paused abruptly.  
  
“Do you think they know, then?” Harry thought he could at least follow what train of thought Draco was likely to be considering, even if he couldn’t sense all the emotions that he should be able to as part of the bond.  
  
“How can they not  _know_? The papers were full of it for days!” Hermione threw up her arms. “Harry, you need to consider this seriously and decide what you’re going to do.”  
  
“I think you’re right, Hermione, but that doesn’t mean I need to decide right now.” He turned towards Draco and cocked his head. “Well? Do you want to tell me why you think they don’t know?”  
  
“Because they would have mentioned it,” Draco said, and brandished the letter again. “Which they don’t. And older pure-blood families tend to isolate themselves from newspapers and rely on their own gossip circuits. And because this seal is new.” He nodded to the seal on the letter again. “The swan isn’t a common symbol for pure-blood families. It  _was_ associated with one particular family a few decades ago, though.”  
  
“Which one?” This time, Harry thought Draco had paused for effect, but he was more than willing to play along and see what happened.  
  
“Maundy,” said Draco, and smiled at him.  
  
“She can’t  _do_ that, though, can she?” Hermione exclaimed in distress. “I mean, she can’t just roll over and expect you to  _take_ this? You made a deal! She’s barred from politics now!”  
  
Draco snorted. “But rumor and gossip aren’t politics. She could have told someone else who was reactionary enough to move forwards on rumor alone just what she wanted them to know, and they would have reacted without thinking. Probably.” He touched the seal again. “I could be wrong. But I  _know_ this isn’t an ancient organization that lots of pure-blood wizards and witches are being invited to join, let’s put it that way.”  
  
“I thought it might be official if they had a seal,” said Hermione, and shook her head. Harry appreciated that Draco didn’t smirk at her or say anything bad, only nodded and took up the letter again.  
  
“I think it’s Maundy,” said Draco calmly. “Which means that you can’t face her again, because the duel was supposed to be the end of any engagement with her. But you  _can_ do something else.” He hesitated and looked towards Harry. “If you’ll trust me, because it puts you in kind of a submissive position.”  
  
Hermione made a loud squawking noise of uncertain protest. Harry only raised his head, and waited for a moment. Draco nodded to him and said quietly, “You can go as my claimed mate. That’ll make a lot of the pure-bloods back off.”  
  
“Do I have to wear chains, or follow orders, or bow down at your feet, or anything like that?” Harry asked equally quietly.  
  
Draco shook his head at once. “But they will assume that we’ve had sex, and that I’m the dominant. And they’ll ask me questions and talk to  _me_. You would have to remain silent unless one of them asked you a direct question.”  
  
“Harry, you  _can’t_ ,” Hermione said. “This is exactly the kind of bollocks that you wanted to  _stop_ when you agreed to become his mate.”  
  
“It’s my decision to make,” Harry told her, and faced Draco. “How easily can we fool them? I mean, if they asked a question and I answered the same way as I always do, that wouldn’t be very convincing, would it?”  
  
Draco paused. “It would depend on what you said, and whether they thought you were answering that way because I had decreed that you could.”  
  
“Then work with me,” said Harry. “Tell me what would come across to them that way, and what wouldn’t. This is your world,” he added, when Draco looked doubtful. “I can tell you sometimes what the pure-blood families who were willing to deal with me think of Muggleborns, and what a lot of them think of the peace process, but that’s not the same thing as what they would interpret as insolence.”  
  
“I know,” said Draco softly, and for a moment, light shimmered around his wings the way it had when they made love. Harry bit his lip, hard, to keep from blushing in front of Hermione. “But you trust me that much.” He sounded full of wonder, and his hand slipped out and caressed Harry’s cheek. “I just— _Harry_. You trust me.”  
  
“That’s why you want him to be submissive, isn’t it?” Hermione muttered. “Because that gets you everything you want without you having to fight for it?”  
  
Draco rolled his eyes at her. “Yes, because Harry hasn’t fought me every step of the way,” he said, and turned back to Harry. “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable. We’ll work together and figure out what you need to say and what would only make them suspicious.”  
  
“And in the meantime, he’ll be submissive in public.” Hermione shook her head at Harry. “Exactly what you didn’t want.”  
  
“How is using their perception of the bond against them showing anything other than that ‘natural submissiveness’ a load of bollocks?” Harry asked incredulously.  
  
Hermione hesitated. “But they aren’t going to know that,” she said finally.  
  
“Them not knowing that is the whole point of this little exercise,” said Draco, and held out his hand to Harry. Harry smiled and stepped up to him, giving Hermione a little shrug. He understood why she was concerned; if Draco had suggested this tactic right after they’d bonded, Harry would have baulked. But this time, he did trust Draco.  
  
“Well, all right.” Hermione looked back and forth between them, then stared at their clasped hands as if she thought that they would burst into flames of sheer contrariness any moment. Harry hid his smile and turned to Draco.  
  
“Teach me what to say and what not to say.”  
  
*  
  
“Mr. Malfoy, thank you for responding to our summons.”  
  
Draco held his head up and the howling laughter that he really wanted to give back. He inclined his head in its place, and murmured, “Thank you for realizing who your original invitation should have been addressed to.”  
  
The pure-blood woman in front of him, who looked as if she spent all her time sucking on lemons, glanced back and forth between him and Harry and said nothing. She looked bewildered.  _Poor thing,_ Draco thought, and smothered a chuckle.  _No, Maundy didn’t tell her._ She had only realized that Draco was the “dominant” in this bond and they should have sent the letter to him when Draco had shown up at the Apparition coordinates with Harry tucked under his arm.  
  
Draco glanced sideways at Harry for a moment. Harry had adopted a calm expression that probably came as second nature to him after all those months of suppressing his emotions for the sake of the peace process. He met Draco’s eyes now, and smiled a little. A second later, he ducked his head.  
  
“Yes, keep your eyes down,” said Draco, in an imitation of the haughty tone that once would have been as real for him as Harry’s suppressed emotions, and turned back to the woman in front of him. “How was it that the letter came addressed to Harry at all?”  
  
“We—we were not aware of the existence of a Veela bond.” The woman wasn’t stupid enough to admit that Maundy was the one who had told them about Harry, if that was indeed the case, but then again, Draco couldn’t imagine that she would be. Maundy had ridiculous allies, but they might be politically astute within small circles. “We would not have spoken to a submissive without permission otherwise.”  
  
Draco felt Harry twitch under his arm. Probably at the notion that his life would have been even  _more_ restricted than he’d known before if he was a “natural” submissive.  
  
“You should have been,” said Draco. “You should have known  _everything_  about us before you sent so imperious a demand.” Most dominant Veela would have used the “us” like that, and the woman in front of him knew it. She cleared her throat and turned to the table behind her, arranged in front of Stonehenge, behind a shimmering anti-Muggle spell, on a circle of green grass. Five other pure-bloods were sitting around it, two of them witches and three wizards. All wore the long, rich robes that were more like shawls around the shoulders, marking wizards of the generation before Lucius’s.  
  
“Or,” Draco continued, with chilling hauteur that he knew would make them flinch, “do the traditions of Veela bonds not matter anymore?”  
  
“Of course they matter,” said the woman. She seemed to be getting some of her confidence back now, the consciousness of her mistake fading. “Of course they do,” she repeated, and with that, her ease returned. She bowed her head. “Please forgive us for not realizing. My name is Esther Horalda, Head of Horalda House.”  
  
Draco kept his face passively cold, but inwardly, he was impressed. Houses were the way that pure-blood families used to identify themselves, when they lived in only one property that their elves and blood would become linked to, rather than multiple houses like the ones the Malfoys owned. And Horalda was a family that had contributed a lot of members to the Wizengamot, the Hogwarts Board of Governors, the Ministers of Magic, and every other office of honor Draco could think of.  
  
But they were also exactly the sort of stuffy pure-blood who would shut themselves away from newspapers and any other method they might have of learning about things like the Veela bond.  
  
“I do hope,” continued Horalda, “that you’ll forgive us.”   
  
“We will,” said Draco, and moved forwards, his arm like a chain around Harry’s shoulders. Harry didn’t act like he minded, though. He was looking mildly from face to face, as if he was a submissive who had no concern in the world because his dominant would decide for him. “Sit, Harry.”  
  
He pulled out the chair, of course. There was only one, but none of the other pure-bloods said anything about conjuring a chair for Draco. They knew the etiquette. Dominants stood, protecting the submissives under their control. Draco spread his wings to shield Harry from the mild sun, and nodded to the other pure-bloods.  
  
They introduced themselves, also all members of the families that Draco had thought they would represent, but speaking briefly. They had chosen Horalda to speak for them, and they wouldn’t go back on their choice because she had made a mistake.  
  
Draco once would have sympathized with that attitude more than he did now. But he’d had to learn flexibility, or he and Harry would have destroyed each other. He listened, his hand on the back of Harry’s chair, as Horalda took her place at the head of the table and nodded to them both, reserving most of her gaze for Draco. Looking too directly at a submissive could be taken to imply that you wanted to claim them.  
  
“We are sorry that we did not know about the Veela bond,” said Horalda. “It changes things now that we do.”  
  
“How?” Draco smiled at her. “I mean, besides who you’ll address your letters to in the future.”  
  
Horalda didn’t smile. “It matters,” she said. “If we can know that Harry Potter is bonded to someone who can control his actions, then we won’t have to worry about his efforts to destroy pure-blood traditions.”  
  
Harry tensed so much that Draco was amazed he was the only one at the table who’d noticed. Then again, he was pleased that he was, because it meant that he was the only one who was that close to Harry, the only one paying that much attention to him.  
  
“What has he done that convinced you he would do that?” Draco asked. “He was praised for his peace meetings that included pure-bloods as well as Muggleborns.”  
  
Harry said nothing, but his hand found Draco’s side beneath the table and poked him with one finger. Draco knew this wasn’t part of the script. Then again, he hadn’t expected the families they met to bring up the issue of power and control and protest against Harry acting independently so soon, either.  
  
“A woman who knows Harry Potter and his disrespect for the pure-blood way of life well told us,” Horalda began.  
  
“That woman’s name is Tamara Maundy,” said Draco. He ignored the sin he’d committed in interrupting. He was going to do worse than that before this evening was out, and time they got used to it. “I know. You don’t have to pretend that she’s some mysterious source you can only quote and not name.”  
  
Horalda tried to stare him down. That didn’t work. With Harry under his arm, Draco was more than willing to fight and the pure-blood families would simply have to understand that.  
  
“Very well,” said Horalda. “How did you know? She mentioned no previous acquaintance with you.”  
  
 _And if you’re smart, you’re wondering how she could have both known about the Veela bond and neglected to inform you of it,_ Draco thought. Aloud, he murmured, “She challenged Harry to a duel. He won, using me as his proxy. The price was that she withdraw from politics and opposing Harry. She is using you as her tools instead.”  
  
One man from the side of the table, whose dark hair and eyes had already marked him as a member of the Jerson family before he even opened his mouth and introduced himself as Samuel Jerson, made an angry spluttering sound. “Do you mean to say that she has manipulated us?”  
  
“Yes.” Draco turned to look at him with a mostly blank face. “Successfully.”  
  
That led to some more waving around of arms and complaining, but Draco had been prepared for that. He stood with one arm wrapped lightly around Harry, and let them wrangle. He had no stake in which one of them won the dispute, as long as they recognized Maundy’s cheat and shifted their allegiance.  
  
Finally, Horalda gained their attention again by clearing her throat, and she turned back to Draco. “This changes things,” she said. “Of course we will need to consider her accusations more clearly, and which of them were made with tainted information.” She paused. “But one thing still concerns me.”  
  
“Yes?” Draco thought he knew what it was. And he also didn’t know how they were to get around it. Not yet.  
  
Horalda leaned forwards, slowly switching her gaze more to Harry. “You said that Harry Potter is your submissive, but that Maundy challenged  _him_. In what way will you resolve that contradiction? Have you bonded or not?” 


	35. Naming and Nurturing

Harry decided that, while he would still go along as much as he could with the ruse he and Draco had devised, he would have to speak up now. There were ways and ways of being submissive.  
  
 _Especially to people like this, who can’t understand us and who haven’t even chosen to get themselves involved in politics enough to know about the bond when it happened._  
  
Harry turned and laid a hand against Draco’s side, where they wouldn’t see it, under the table. Then he looked up at Draco with huge, appealing eyes that he tried hard to make have a slight sheen of tears. That would probably show submissiveness to people like this, with their limited definition of it.  
  
“Harry,” Draco said, turning towards him. His wings flexed for a moment; his talons unfolded and shone, and his voice dropped into a growl. “Do you need something?” His eyes darted around the table vigilantly, although Harry didn’t understand why until he seemed to focus on Horalda. Draco thought someone had cast a hidden spell to hurt him, the way Maundy had with the Pain Geis.  
  
 _I must have done the work of coaxing the tears out a little too well,_ thought Harry, unaccountably amused, and fluttered his eyelashes some more. “To speak,” he whispered, and while he might be supposed to have asked permission nonverbally, Draco had told him that sometimes submissives could ask aloud. “Please?” He tried to tilt his head winsomely, although he had the feeling he wasn’t very good at it.  
  
Draco stared down at him as if he had become the center of the universe, his mouth a little open. His eyes looked dazed, Harry noted, carefully concealing his amusement. Then he blinked, and his gaze snapped and locked on Harry.   
  
“Yes, you may,” he said, and turned towards Horalda and the others, his hand resting proudly in the middle of Harry’s shoulder blade. “My mate wishes to address the table,” he said. His wings opened out in some gesture Harry didn’t know, rising as if he would launch himself from the ground, then drooping and dropping back down as slowly as whirling leaves.  
  
“Yes,” said Horalda, eyes curious as she fixed them on Harry.  
  
“You should know that I was raised in the Muggle world,” Harry whispered. Draco tensed horribly next to him, and Harry could almost hear his thoughts:  _You’re going to tell them the_ truth?  
  
Harry pressed his hand reassuringly against Draco’s side again, and if he trusted Draco enough to go along with this charade, it seemed Draco trusted him enough to break it, because he relaxed again and let his wing brush the back of Harry’s neck. Harry took that as the only permission he needed, and turned around again. “I didn’t fully accept the bond, because I  _couldn’t_ ,” he told Horalda. “I reacted badly and wanted to get away from Draco. Then I wanted to use him somehow. Using him as the proxy in the duel seemed to be a good way to do that.”  
  
Harry could sense Draco blinking beside him. He had never said anything about this, and he knew Draco would be studying him with a wondering stare, trying to locate the moment when Harry’s mind had changed and he had decided on this particular lie.  
  
Harry reached out and squeezed Draco’s hand, but didn’t take his eyes from Horalda. She only looked at him as if he was an unusual creature but not one completely outside her experience, the way a Muggle-raised Veela mate would be for most wizards, and nodded. “And you’ve accepted the bond now?”  
  
Harry knew his blush was probably visible from space, but then, all the people around him, Horalda included, knew what a Veela bond consisted of. They knew he and Draco must have had sex to establish the bond.  
  
“Yes,” he whispered, and he probably looked like a submissive right now, enough to suit them all, if the glance he darted at Draco and then at the ground was any indication. Harry hadn’t even planned on that; it just happened.  
  
From the corner of his eye, he could see Horalda shrug. “So your mate was a little behind in accepting the bond,” she told Draco, and it was clear that she thought Harry would keep silent for a time. “Did you fight the duel for him?”  
  
“Yes.” Draco spread his wings and half-bowed his head, in what might be a ceremonial gesture that Harry didn’t know, or just a way to please Horalda and the rest. Perhaps they would like a dominant Veela to be submissive to  _them_ , Harry thought, however much they might approve of him being in control of his mate. “Tamara Maundy used a proxy as well, a jeweled dragon of her own creation. I thought the least I could do was appease my mate when he asked for my help.”  
  
“Appease,” said Horalda, and smiled a little. “I see. And you won the duel?”  
  
“Yes.” Draco repeated the word with a different cadence than before, and leaned forwards, peering intently from face to face. “And it saddens me to see Maundy using you as her proxies in  _this_ duel, trying to push against my mate, when her dragon and her direct political intervention and her Pain Geis failed to control him.”  
  
Harry mouthed  _Pain Geis?_ because that wasn’t something they had discussed bringing up either. He looked at Draco, but Draco wasn’t looking at him. He was watching the reactions that Horalda made with a satisfied smile.  
  
The woman had actually turned away from them, Harry realized, and was staring at the other members of her little group as though they were having an intense, silent conversation. Maybe they knew each other well enough for that; Harry had no idea. She turned back, and there was a clipped sound to her voice. “It is true that Maundy was the one who informed us of your mate’s intervention in the peace process. But she never mentioned he was mated. And as he is the submissive, and won’t be leading a political life anymore, we find Maundy’s attempts to use us and misinform us annoying.”  
  
Harry opened his mouth, but Draco got there before him. “Pardon me, but he will have a political life,” Draco said calmly, resting his hand on Harry’s shoulder. “It’s my will that he does.”  
  
Harry wanted to spit something, but he knew this was the best compromise that Draco could offer at the moment. And it would explain their actions in the future, should Horalda and the others actually hear about them, in much the same way as Harry’s tale about late acceptance of the bond had resolved their concerns about a submissive acting independently.   
  
“Why?” Horalda now looked at Draco as if he was far stranger than Harry was. “A politically active submissive might gain many ideas that you would wish he hadn’t.”  
  
“I am secure in my concern for Harry, my love for him, and he is the same when it comes to me,” said Draco in a calm, clear voice, his wings spreading out and over his head the way they did when he came in for a landing. Harry had to smile at him, which Draco returned with one corner of his mouth, his eyes on Horalda. “I know that he needs a political life to be happy, and Veela always want what makes their mates happy. You knew that, I trust?”  
  
“The truth we have all forgotten, I think.” Horalda appeared to mull it over for a minute, and then she nodded and gave Harry a benevolent smile. “Would you give me permission to ask your submissive one question, Mr. Malfoy?”  
  
“Yes.” Draco didn’t consider the question or consult Harry, which, honestly, was fine with Harry. He was eager to talk to someone who spoke to him as if he was a real live human being capable of making up his own mind.  
  
 _I can pretend to be submissive for the sake of a political end, but there’s no way I could pretend for life,_ he thought with a slight shudder, as he awaited Horalda’s question.  
  
“Why did you set out to interfere in the peace process in the first place?” Horalda asked. “I am vaguely aware of the sort of life you must have led at Hogwarts and before, although I wouldn’t pretend to understand the inner politics of Gryffindor House.”  
  
Harry bit the inside of his cheek to avoid snapping that there  _were_  no politics in Gryffindor. He understood now why that was a stupid thing to say, although he could sit there and think it as much as he wanted.   
  
“But nothing in that life suggests to me that you would want to spend the rest of your life struggling with a hopeless task.” Horalda splayed her fingers under her chin and spent a few moments contemplating Harry. “In fact, I would think that you’d welcome the chance, as a Veela mate, to bow out and spend the rest of your life being pampered.”  
  
“Wouldn’t I be  _doing_ the pampering?” Harry muttered before he could stop himself, but Horalda only gave him a sort of perplexed look. She either hadn’t heard fully or wouldn’t ask a second question when she had begged permission for only one, so Harry inwardly rolled his eyes and continued. “I wanted to stop the next war that I thought would break out soon if pure-bloods and Muggleborns had the same sort of tension between them. I fought in one war. I don’t want to fight in another.”  
  
“There can never be absolute peace, though,” said Horalda, and shook her head. “It seems as ridiculous that you would want to intervene in it as that you would assume there’s absolute peace to be had.”  
  
“I want to lessen the chances of a war,” said Harry shortly.  _Just like some musty pure-blood to ask me a question and then not listen to the answer._ “I know there might be another war someday. But I want to prevent one in my lifetime and from the same sort of tensions. If the Muggles attack us or something, then yeah, that’s a war I can’t stop. But even in that kind of war, things would work better if we had a coordinated defense instead of wizards squabbling over whose grandparents were more important.”  
  
“Those matters  _are_ important,” said Horalda softly. “Without knowing lineages, we wouldn’t be able to—”  
  
“Divide yourselves?” Harry snapped. He thought Horalda could have been talking about all wizards and witches with “we,” but he also thought it was unlikely. No, far more likely that she did mean only pure-bloods, and somehow the Muggleborns and others were supposed to fit in around them. “That leads to more of the same sort of stupid categories. I can’t ensure peace for all time, but I can at least work on it for  _my_ time. And that’s what I’m going to do.”  
  
Everyone at the table, except Horalda, was gaping at him now. Horalda only turned to Draco and shook her head in a slow and tragic fashion. Harry got ready to call his magic if he needed to.  
  
“Mr. Malfoy,” said Horalda, in accents as heavy as the shake of her head, “I don’t envy you the possession of your mate.”  
  
Draco smiled a second later, and shot a glance at Harry that made  _Harry_  envy Draco the possession of his wings. He would have liked to fly at that moment. “I didn’t really know what to do with him at first,” Draco said serenely. “He was a surprise. But now I wouldn’t trade him for any other mate in the world.” He draped a wing around Harry’s shoulder and pulled him close.  
  
Harry went with it, letting his eyes slip shut as he sighed softly. Yes, this was what he wanted. Someone to embrace him, someone to hold him close and bear him up.  
  
Not all the time. Not in the way that Ron had told him other Veela submissives functioned at first. The image of Camilla kneeling like a statue that someone needed to march around was one that Harry thought would wake him up in cold sweat for a while.  
  
“Well, it’s your life and not mine.” Horalda was shrugging when Harry opened his eyes to look at her again. “Thank Merlin,” Horalda added, with what looked like a little shudder, and then she stood. “I shall tell the others, including the ones who sent us as representatives, that we misunderstood the situation and you shouldn’t be bothered.” She glanced at Harry. “Even if we will always think of what you’re doing as wrong.”  
  
Draco’s wing pressed into the small of his back as Harry prepared to utter a hot retort. Then he remembered that it was probably sort of a big deal for Horalda to be talking to him at all, since she would have thought most of the time that he was a doll who needed a button pushed in his back—  
  
 _Or whatever the musty pure-blood equivalent of that kind of doll is—_  
  
So he only gave her a tight smile instead, and Draco’s wing gave him an approving caress.  
  
“Thank you for coming to meet us, Mr. Malfoy,” said Horalda, and gave Draco a little gesture with spread palms that Harry didn’t know. Draco returned it, echoing it with his wings.  
  
That seemed to be as much ceremony as the meeting needed to end. Two of the other wizards came up to talk to Horalda, and Harry felt Draco steering and pulling him away. He stayed obediently silent until they reached the Apparition point and arrived back at the Manor, and then he gave a snort hard enough to shake his own bones.  
  
Draco laughed. “I could tell how much you were struggling to hold that in,” he said, and his hand rested on Harry’s shoulder for a second, a gentle pressure.   
  
“They’re just  _infuriating_ ,” Harry muttered, shrugging Draco’s hold off and pacing up and down on the gravel drive in front of the Manor. Draco walked towards the house, and Harry followed, still pacing. “Oh, yes, we’ll pat you on the head and tell you how cute you are, and then say that we hope your greatest desire fails. Oh, yes, how  _gracious_ of them.”  
  
“They were being as gracious as they knew how,” said Draco, and his voice had gone cool. Harry stopped and scowled at him. He really didn’t think that Draco, who had been so good about understanding the unusual nature of their bond lately and trying to compromise with Harry on it, would suddenly have started sharing the beliefs of a bunch of creaky old families.  
  
“Are you going to start calling Muggleborns names again? I thought you didn’t agree with them!”  
  
“I was raised with the same ideals, if a more modernized version of them. It’s hard for me not to agree with them.” But Draco shook his head a second later and ran his hand through his hair, then down the edge of one wing in what Harry recognized as a calming gesture. “But there’s one thing I need to ask you. Is stopping the war, or easing the tensions between Muggleborns and pure-bloods, or whatever you want to call it, your greatest desire?”  
  
Harry opened his mouth to answer that of course it was, he had just told Draco so, and then he saw Draco’s slightly averted eyes and his trembling, drooping wings.  
  
He sighed and came over, throwing his arms around Draco. Draco held back for a second, as if he didn’t want to embrace Harry without an answer, but then both arms and wings curled around Harry’s waist and shoulders, holding him silently and desperately.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Harry whispered. “I forgot how those words of mine can hurt you.”  
  
“An affirmation or a denial would be good about now, Harry.” Draco’s head turned to the side, and his mouth seemed to nudge into Harry’s hair, which Harry didn’t understand for a moment, until he figured out that a beak had replaced Draco’s mouth and nose.  
  
Harry reached up and nodded, smoothing his hand gently down the curve of Draco’s wing, too. “That was my greatest  _political_ desire, I should have said. I can split desires into different categories,” he added hastily, when he saw Draco’s beak opening to give what was probably a scream. “My greatest personal one is for you.”  
  
There was a white shimmer around Draco’s head for a moment, cold and threatening, like the glare off snow. Then it slimmed away, and Draco rested his hands on Harry’s shoulders and nuzzled into his hair with a human mouth and a sigh.  
  
“Thank you,” he said. “I know it seems silly, to need reassurance like that…”  
  
Harry snorted. “No sillier than it is that I keep forgetting about how you’re affected by certain things I say. If that’s what you need, then it is. I think we’ve both mostly been good about giving each other the things we need?” He looked hesitantly up into Draco’s eyes.  
  
Draco smiled for a second, a raw, quicksilver dart of a gleam that spread along his face and made it shine even after the smile faded. He nodded.  
  
Harry stood beside him in the embrace of his wings for a few minutes more, then let Draco fly him into the house and carry him upstairs and cuddle with him on the bed. He knew that Draco needed it.  
  
And honestly, after facing a bunch of pure-bloods who still acted as though there was an indefinable distance between themselves and Muggleborns, and having them speak to him only when they thought he was under control like a wild beast, Harry needed it, too.


	36. Gifts and Graciousness

“I need to know if we will be able to continue the profitable alliance that we had before my daughter propositioned you,” was the first thing Helena Greengrass said when her head appeared in the fire in front of Harry.  
  
Harry blinked a little and studied the woman for a moment. He had agreed to take the firecall because it was only a firecall, and because it wasn’t Daphne who was calling. But he had never expected Helena to be talking about something like this. He had thought it would be more threats about him turning Daphne down, in which case he would have closed the Floo.  
  
Draco was hovering near the door, literally, with his feet off the ground. Harry heard the thump as he settled back down, and turned to smile at him before he faced Helena again.  
  
“That would depend on your motivations for allying with me in the first place,” he said carefully. “Did you ever want to achieve what you said you did, the integration of some Muggleborns back into the wizarding world? Or did you only want a chance for your daughter to sleep with me?”  
  
Helena showed no embarrassment at his choice of words. Harry wondered if he should have been cruder. As it was, confronted with a face that looked almost exactly like Daphne’s except older and with a slightly different shade of green in the eyes, he felt as if  _he_ was the one who should have been embarrassed.  
  
“Daphne can be a difficult child,” said Helena abruptly.  
  
“Right,” said Harry. He wondered if the word “child” was significant, and then sighed soundlessly. Of course it was. Everything always was, with pure-bloods. “That doesn’t excuse her approaching me when she knew I had a Veela mate. And you didn’t answer my question.”  
  
For a moment, Harry thought he saw Helena’s hands wind around each other. Then she said, “It was Daphne’s idea to try and ally with you. I had nothing to say against it, but it was not why I originally approached you.”  
  
 _Ally. What a neutral word for it._ From the way Draco shrieked behind him, he approved of it no more than Harry did. But Harry knew trying to discuss it with Helena wouldn’t get him very far, so he settled for studying her with icy eyes for a moment, and then drawling, “If you want to have an  _alliance_ with me, as you put it, then you’ll leave Daphne at home.”  
  
Helena hesitated for the merest second, and then nodded. “I don’t think she’d want to be with us, anyway,” she said. “She found the actual politics boring.”  
  
Harry said nothing about the blatant lying Daphne must have done to him, then, to pretend she found them interesting. He only nodded again and said, “Where shall we meet?”  
  
*  
  
Draco smiled a little as he slung an arm over Harry’s shoulders and steered him into Flourish and Blotts. Helena had first suggested meeting at her house, and Draco hadn’t even had to prompt Harry for him to agree that was a bad idea. Draco knew why she’d wanted the meeting there, of course—beyond the advantages of home ground, like wards and traps ready to take Harry down in case he did something impressive. There was always the chance that Daphne might stumble into the meeting, and Helena was Greengrass enough to want to see what would happen if Harry had another chance to look at the “temptations” of her daughter.  
  
But they had finally hammered out a plan for meeting in Diagon Alley instead, in a small “shop” whose main business was providing private, neutral ground for feuding wizards or ones whose meetings might be politically unwise to see each other in privacy. And the meeting was half an hour from now, which meant Draco felt free to take Harry to the bookshop and spoil him with things he might want but would never buy for himself.  
  
“Why are we here? Draco?”  
  
Harry’s voice was uncertain. Draco smiled at him and murmured, “I know that you read all the books on Veela in the Manor library. But we only have books from a fairly pragmatic perspective, I’ll admit. Books that talk constantly about the honor it is to be chosen by a Veela as a mate, and books that discuss heirs and the chances that they’ll have Veela blood if they’re mostly human. You might want to look at books that talk about the more  _romantic_ side of the bond?”  
  
Harry blinked and looked up at him. “Well, yeah, but I need to know right now—am I doing something wrong? Is there something you need that I’m not giving you?”  
  
A few people in the shop looked around when they heard that. Draco snorted with an amusement he couldn’t control and bent over to gently put an arm around Harry’s shoulder. “You’ll want to remember what you sound like when you say that,” he murmured. “The dried-up old sticks we met with won’t tell anyone about your submissive act because they basically don’t communicate with the wizarding world, but other people might think it’s real.”  
  
Harry flushed brilliantly and nodded. “Fine, but I still need an answer to my question.”  
  
 _No, this isn’t the perfect submissive mate that I thought nature and destiny were promising me,_ Draco thought, as he smiled into Harry’s eyes.  _This is better._  
  
“No,” he whispered. “I think that you might still not understand everything about Veela, though. Things that would help you. Things that might make you more comfortable with the way I act sometimes. So you can browse to your heart’s content.” He swept his arm along the shelves around them; they were in the section that mostly contained tomes on Magical Creatures, the sort that would never be assigned in classes at Hogwarts in case they told someone something useful. “And it’s a gift.”  
  
Harry looked over his shoulder with sharp eyes. “One thing that I  _can_ do, Draco, is pay for my own books.”  
  
“You could,” Draco agreed, enchanted with the way Harry’s cheeks flushed. “But why would you want to, when I can do the same thing, and I have more money than I could ever spend? Thanks in part to you,” he added pointedly. He knew well enough the Ministry would have taken it away if Harry hadn’t spoken up at his trial.  
  
Harry scowled at him again, but he did turn to the shelf of books with a thoughtful expression on his face. Draco smiled and spread his wings, “accidentally” sealing off the aisle where Harry stood. He didn’t want anyone to disturb Harry while he was looking for something that would turn into a gift for him.  
  
Harry spent a few minutes pulling down books and looking at them. Then he turned around with a scowl on his face. “They’re romantic, all right. They keep talking about natural submission and all the rest of that shit.” He shook his head. “I appreciate what you want to give me, Draco, but I think they might as well stay where they are.”  
  
“All of them are the same?” Draco asked in a soft, thoughtful voice. “You can’t learn anything by looking at some of them?”  
  
“I don’t see how,” said Harry, staring at him. “Not if they’re going to give me rules for a life we already decided I wasn’t going to live.”  
  
“Think again,” Draco whispered, leaning past him and putting his hand on the spine of the nearest book. He recognized this particular one, because his mother had had him read it when he was younger. But she had borrowed it from somewhere else—maybe the Black library, or a friend’s house—and Draco had never seen it since. “What about this? You haven’t looked at this one.”  
  
“ _The Veela Way_ ,” Harry read, with a quick glance at Draco. “That title sounds familiar. It’s not the same book you have in your library? The one about how Veela customs have never changed and dominant Veela can’t survive unless their every whim is catered to?”  
  
“This is the second volume,” said Draco, and smiled a little. He could see why Harry would be offended by some of the silly things that had been in that first book—the same way he could see why he had believed that book himself when he was younger. “The one written by a Veela mate, instead of a Veela in the bond.”  
  
Harry grunted and flicked the book open. A second later, his eyebrows were climbing upwards. “Yes, I know,” he muttered. “It  _does_ seem strange that a human being could lay an egg.”  
  
“That’s not what happens, and you know it,” Draco breathed, leaning over him. Harry looked up at him, and Draco felt his wings tremble as he realized the sort of position they were in and what it could lead to if they weren’t careful, even here in the middle of the bookshop. He pulled himself back with a small cough. “You know that it’s not like one of us simply lays the egg. I’m bird-like, but not a bird.”  
  
“I know.” Harry regarded the book thoughtfully for a second, then nodded. “I’ll take this one. It honestly looks as though none of the others really have anything to tell me.”  
  
Draco sniffed, a little disappointed. He had hoped that Harry would want more books if only because that would mean he could give him a bigger gift, but this was all right. Draco would only have an excuse to give him more at a later date. “Fine. Let’s go pay for it.”  
  
“Draco? Thanks.”  
  
It was a quiet pair of words that he might not even have been intended to hear, but Draco heard them anyway. He had sharp ears when it came to anything his mate might say. He extended one wing back and brushed it along the nape of Harry’s neck in response, gently lifting up his hair.  
  
Now, the quickening of Harry’s breath in response to the touch,  _that_ he heard without effort. Smiling, Draco went to pay for the book.  
  
*  
  
“You should know about the new bill that a few of my colleagues are trying to get the Wizengamot to pass,” said Helena, and she was staring at Harry with her face like a placid pool of water, the same expression she had worn when Harry had thought he could trust her. “It’s not as bad as suppressing Muggleborns’ magic, but it’s along the same lines. They want to make Muggleborns register when they leave Hogwarts and be under a ‘watch’ for several years to make sure they aren’t going to the Muggle world.”  
  
Harry sighed. It was good to feel the warmth of Draco’s wing around his shoulders and know he wasn’t facing this alone. “Fine. But you were in favor of things like suppressing Muggleborns’ magic the last time I looked. What changed your mind?”  
  
Helena waited so long that Harry thought she wasn’t going to answer after all. He occupied himself with looking around the room instead. He had never actually been in this place before.  
  
This particular room had dark red velvet panels on the wall that muffled sound, or maybe they were tapestries. The room was so dim, lit only by candles on the mantel and a few flames flickering lowly in the fireplace, that Harry couldn’t tell. He did know that the table beneath their hands was scarred, despite the glamour of a perfect surface, because he could feel the scars under his fingers. And none of them had anything to drink or eat right now, meaning there was no distraction from the simple furniture.  
  
Round table, three chairs. All of them made of wood. Harry found himself categorizing possible escapes and exits from the room, like whether the fireplace was hooked up to the Floo network and whether the tapestries covered solid walls or not, and shook his head sharply to wake up from the mood and memories. Draco uttered a concerned croon behind him and reached out to touch his shoulder.  
  
Helena had come back to gazing at his face when Harry turned to her. He tried to be as calm and brisk as he could. “Are you going to tell me why you’ve changed sides?”  
  
“I have realized that perhaps the Muggleborn side holds more practical advantages than I believed.” Helena inclined her head. Harry supposed he would have to accept her words unless he could prove she was lying. After all, this was the woman who had admitted a few hours ago that having her daughter seduce him was a matter of political convenience for her. “After all, I can find allies there as well as here.”  
  
“You can find allies who want you to suppress their magic?” Harry was glad that Draco had spoken. He’d hit the right tone of amused incredulity that Harry probably couldn’t have, with outrage choking his throat.  
  
“No,” said Helena. “I can find allies who agree that integration of Muggleborns into pure-blood culture is a good thing. And they’re willing to demonstrate their commitment to that integration on a personal level.”  
  
Harry blinked. That sounded almost like…  
  
“You’re  _marrying_ a Muggleborn?” he asked, and flushed under the glance Helena cast him. He had known she was widowed, but he hadn’t ever inquired into the circumstances that Daphne’s father had died under. For all Harry knew, he’d been murdered by a member of the Order of the Phoenix during the first war.  
  
“Yes,” said Helena. “There are some among them who appreciate the political benefits of such an arrangement, as I think I mentioned. I would never have thought that, but they do.” A slight, amused smile played around her lips. “They  _do_ go on, sometimes, but they have good minds underneath it all.”  
  
 _She should have known that from meeting Hermione._  
  
Harry was hardly going to blame someone for finally doing something that would benefit his side, though. He ended up inclining his head and murmuring, “Good luck with the marriage. It sounds like you’ll face your own challenges.”  
  
“Yes.” Helena’s eyes were shining, exultant. She sat up and spent a moment thinly smiling at nothing, as though daring an invisible person to challenge her. Then she paused and looked at Harry. “My thought was that we could use the similarities between our bondings to our advantage.”  
  
“I’m not Muggleborn, though,” Harry said, blinking, and Draco’s wing settled along the edge of his shoulder, stroking. Harry reckoned that was supposed to tell him that Draco didn’t think Harry was only bonded to him out of convenience, either. Harry reached back and gently grasped a feather between two fingers.  
  
“No,” Helena agreed. “But you are someone who was raised outside pure-blood culture, and you’re now trying to find your place within it, because of who you bonded to.” She leaned forwards with her fist beneath her chin and her eyes fastened on Harry. ‘And so is my Howard.”  
  
Harry spent a moment scouring his memory for traces of a “Howard,” but he couldn’t find any. Well, he knew that Helena had attended some negotiation meetings without him. She had probably met this man at one of them.  
  
“Harry is mated to a magical creature,” Draco murmured. “Will the similarities be enough to even make an impact on other people, without our constantly mentioning them?”  
  
“Why  _not_ constantly mention them?” Helena turned to Draco now and shared some kind of deep glance with him that Harry wasn’t privy to. He reckoned that he was experiencing the feeling of being shut out of pure-blood culture. “We want to emphasize them, and the papers like large, obvious things that they are told over and over again. So we will do this.”  
  
Draco blinked, looking struck. Harry decided that he probably did think it was a good plan; he was just reluctant to compare Harry to this Muggleborn man and Helena to himself in any way.  
  
“We can make it work, yes,” Harry said, and drew Helena’s attention back to him. “As long as you don’t expect me to act submissive like a traditional Veela mate in public. That might be what some people expect if I talk about how I’m learning to respond and work my way into pure-blood culture.”  
  
Helena gave him a frosty smile. “Believe me, Mr. Potter, no one could think that you were submissive if they had met you.” She paused for a moment, keeping time to an inner beat with one finger. “And I think…yes, I  _do_ think that we should emphasize even the ways in which you may be struggling to accept your status as a Veela mate, and how you and Mr. Malfoy are coming together anyway. The public loves a good romance. I can only present a limited side of that in mine with Howard, because I met him so recently and the public isn’t as interested in me as it is in you. But this is something we can work on. Yes.” She was smiling by the time she finished, and she turned around to look at Harry. “You’ll agree to publicize some of your struggles with the Veela role and explain to people what was difficult for you in your relationship?”  
  
Harry’s throat burned. This was a different kind of exposure for him. He hadn’t minded throwing himself into the peace process and doing all he could for it because it  _wasn’t_ personal; it was just what anyone would have to do to be politically successful and achieve his goals. But this was parading his private life in front of the public.  
  
Draco looked at him, eyes patient and waiting. He was going to let Harry make this decision.  
  
 _He probably doesn’t have that many objections,_ Harry decided abruptly.  _He probably_ doesn’t  _mind showing me off because it means that he gets to flaunt his perfect mate in front of people._  
  
And knowing Draco didn’t mind, and would be there to protect him if he needed it, decided Harry. He extended a decisive hand, and shook Helena’s. “We have a bargain,” he said. “So long as you can keep Daphne out of it,” he added.  
  
“I will.”  
  
 _And really,_ Harry thought, judging by the gleam in Helena’s eyes,  _she probably will. I suppose we should be grateful that her daughter is less important to her than political advantage._


	37. Ashes and Alliances

Harry made a face at himself in the mirror, and heard Draco hiss softly behind him with agitation. A second later, his hands rested on Harry’s shoulders and smoothed down the cloth as if he wanted to make sure that Harry hadn’t ruined it with his scowl.  
  
Harry turned around and deliberately rolled his eyes as hard as he could. Draco looked back at him, calm and simple, with a hint of disappointment in his expression, until Harry huffed and faced the mirror again.  
  
“You know this is ridiculous,” he said under his breath, but not so far under it that Draco couldn’t hear.  
  
“I don’t know that at all.” Draco’s voice was deep and solemn. He touched Harry’s shoulders again and let his hands linger this time, bowing his head so that he could look at Harry in the mirror. “Besides, you were the one who agreed to publicize our struggles with the Veela bond. It would be wrong to give them the impression that we’re  _still_ struggling with it, wouldn’t it?”  
  
“That doesn’t mean you have to dress me up like a doll!”  
  
From the pressure of Draco’s hands on his shoulders, Harry knew that his shot had gone home, and probably harder than he’d intended. He opened his mouth to apologize, and Draco’s voice cut in instead, simmering.   
  
“Listen to me, Harry. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with letting me spoil you. You agree with that, don’t you?”  
  
“Yes,” said Harry, a little grudgingly. The book on Veela that Draco had bought him was fascinating, and Harry had buried himself in it for most of the weekend. It wasn’t like Harry  _minded_ gifts. He let his friends buy him whatever they wanted for his birthday, and he had stopped worrying about the cost, especially since the twins’ joke shop was doing so well.  
  
 _George’s joke shop, now._  
  
Harry took a deep breath and exhaled his grief for Fred. It couldn’t help him, not right now.  
  
“Then clothes are only another gift, and you should be able to  _accept_ that.” From the way that Draco’s hands tightened this time, Harry wouldn’t have been surprised to be shaken back and forth until his head was flopping. “You understand?”  
  
Harry lowered his eyes. “All right,” he muttered. “But it’s still—it’s too—it’s not too _expensive_ ,” he added, as he saw Draco’s reflected mouth open. “But it is pretty rich for me, isn’t it?” He plucked at the sleeve of the silken shirt and glared once again at his reflection in the mirror. He looked like a Muggle dressed up and playing prince.  
  
It wasn’t that there were ruffles or something, or Harry would have looked like someone playing princ _ess_ , but he didn’t think Draco would do that to him. There was silver, though. And the shirt was dark green. And Draco had also got him trousers made of something dark and soft that moved when he moved, so flexible he scarcely noticed it. And he had thought Draco would buy him a pair of expensive robes, which he could have lived with, not  _this_.  
  
“I’m sorry that comfortable trousers make you uncomfortable.”  
  
Harry glared into the mirror. Yes, now Draco was on the verge of  _laughter_. Harry shook his head. “Listen. I agree you can buy me gifts. All right? But it just—it doesn’t look right on me.” He pulled at the shirt again.  
  
Draco bent over him, and his voice was soft. Harry found himself relaxing against his will, just listening. “You were wearing Muggle hand-me-downs. I  _know_ that. And then you wore school robes, and sometimes dress robes if someone demanded that you do it. But you haven’t ever had clothes that were tailored just for you and make you look nice at the same time. It’s all right. You’ll get used to it.”  
  
Harry glanced once into the mirror, and then turned his head aside. “But they don’t make me recognize myself,” he said. “I  _look_ different.”  
  
“Explain to me how you look different.” Draco’s hands had come to rest on his shoulders again, motionless.  
  
“I—I don’t think my eyes are that color,” said Harry, and glared into the mirror again.  
  
They  _weren’t_. In the mirror they looked like they were glowing from the inside or something, and Harry heard enough about his eyes being this vibrant, unnatural shade of green. He really didn’t want to wear something that would just drag that color out more.  
  
Draco’s hands fussed and fiddled and flexed for a few minutes, and then he gave a mixture of a grunt and a sigh, and muttered, “Your eyes are beautiful, Harry. That shirt brings them out. That’s all.”  
  
Harry watched himself flush for a second before he closed his eyes. “And you don’t think they’re glowing from the inside?”  
  
“No. Why would I have got you this shirt if I thought that? I don’t want you to look as though your brain is on fire.”  
  
Harry burst out laughing, as much at the tone of honest bewilderment in Draco’s voice as anything else, and the moment passed. He turned around and smiled at Draco, who relaxed and bowed his head to nuzzle at the back of Harry’s neck. “Yes, all right, I understand. Thank you.” He clenched Draco’s hand for a moment before he let it go and moved to the door. “We need to go or we’ll be late for the meeting, right?”  
  
*  
  
Harry didn’t even notice all the people watching him.  
  
But Draco  _did,_ and as long as none of those people replicated Daphne’s mistake and tried to touch, Draco was content that it should be so.  
  
Harry walked into the meeting, which was as much a discussion with reporters as it was a discussion with Muggleborns and pure-bloods, with no more than a murmur to Draco for holding the door for him. They were in the Three Broomsticks, and Madam Rosmerta was fluttering around getting drinks and placing meals on tables. Draco winced at the sight of her before his gaze went back to Harry.  
  
Harry hadn’t said anything because he was studying faces and probably trying to figure out alliances. Other people hadn’t said anything because it was hard to talk with your jaw halfway down your chest.  
  
Draco spread his wings, knowing that would lure some eyes to him, but not caring. The experiment was a success, and he was  _smug_. Harry might protest all he wanted that he didn’t know about being handsome, that he looked like someone in a costume, that the clothes were too expensive for him. What they made him look like, and Draco had to admit his bias, was royalty. That was clear when Harry inclined his head to the man sitting at the end of the largest table, a pompous pure-blood, and the man practically bowed back.  
  
 _It’s not all my bias. Other people can actually see what’s there, and they’re not his mate._  
  
No one tried to touch Harry. They made way for him, and Harry, although with a blink that might have indicated he’d noticed how unusual that was, sat down and started talking. Draco moved up and stood behind him with his wings spread and the tips framing either side of Harry’s head. Other than a single roll of his eyes, Harry didn’t indicate he thought there was anything wrong with that.  
  
Draco’s bones ached with his pride.  
  
At one point, Helena Greengrass stood up and tapped her hand on the table, and silence fell. Greengrass turned towards Draco and Harry and opened one hand. “We came here together to discuss the peace process, of course,” she said, and her voice was a  _touch_ away from the kind of sliminess Draco would have found objectionable. “But we also came here to witness an announcement of the sort of Veela bond that Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter have found together.”  
  
Draco’s wings quivered once, then stabilized. She hadn’t said anything that was actually objectionable. He was a little amazed.  
  
“As you know,” Greengrass went on, turning in a circle as if she was displaying before a much larger audience, “Mr. Potter and Mr. Malfoy hardly have a traditional Veela bond. Mr. Potter was raised by Muggles, and didn’t know what honor a Veela bond was supposed to convey. Mr. Malfoy was raised entirely in the wizarding world and thought everyone would know and want to be a submissive to his Veela.”  
  
And then she sat down, leaving them with that slightly too-honest introduction. Some of the pure-bloods were staring at Harry, and Draco was sure they wondered how he’d been suffered to grow up in the Muggle world.  
  
“So,” said Harry, and nodded to everyone who was staring at him. “This bond was hard for me to accept. I knew I could never stay at home all the time and simply defer to Draco. Luckily, we found out that wasn’t what  _he_ wanted, either.” He turned and smiled up at Draco, with warm and glowing affection, and Draco found himself smiling back without planning on it.  
  
“No,” Draco said. “I wanted what I  _thought_ was the ideal mate. But I also wanted Harry. And to have the one that ultimately mattered most, I had to let the ideal go.” He rested his hand on Harry’s shoulder for a moment.  
  
Harry stiffened, but Draco didn’t think it was from his touch. He decided that Harry was probably fighting against the urge to duck his head and let his hair fall over his scar. A second later, he nodded and cleared his throat, then looked around and asked, “What are your questions?”  
  
“You’re one of the most famous wizards in the world,” said the pure-blood man who had bowed back to Harry at once. “There’s really no doubt that you’re going to stay in our world for the rest of your life, is there?”  
  
“No,” Harry said slowly. Draco could feel puzzlement, which felt like little silver chimes, from the back of the bond.  
  
“Then why put up such a fuss about being submissive?” The man doubled down his fists on the table. “Learn the truth, if you didn’t know it, accept it for the honor it is, and go along with it.”  
  
“I couldn’t think it was an honor even when I learned about it,” Harry said, and the man almost tumbled back, as if his chair had rockers on it. “I was used to fighting for myself. I was involved in politics. What about that, sir, made you think that I could so easily let someone else manage my life for me?”  
  
“A submissive would just naturally want to, though,” the man said. He glanced at Draco’s wings. “And he has all the marks of a dominant.”  
  
Harry shook his head. “I didn’t naturally want to. I think we should rethink Veela bonds. Maybe they can still be honors, but not in the same way they always have been.”  
  
“You are assuming there will be others in your situation,” Greengrass said, which made Draco turn to her with his wings spread until he realized what she was trying to do: give them a solid basis to push back and argue against. Draco managed to tuck his wings behind his shoulder blades and give her a strict nod, although it was hard.  
  
“Of course there will be,” said Harry, with a bored shrug. “Other Muggle-raised submissives, other Veela who don’t have perfect bonds to their mates. We’ve already found some evidence of them in the books I’ve read.” He turned to Greengrass and gave her a patient smile. “There have to be bonds like this that happened before. It’s simply hard for most people to acknowledge that they might have to change their minds about an ancient and cherished tradition, so it makes sense for the reality to have been buried in the flow of history.”  
  
Greengrass paused long enough that Draco thought she might be planning to turn on them after all and betray them to other allies of hers. In the end, she nodded, murmured, “Planning for the future, as usual, Mr. Potter,” and sat down.  
  
“My grandmother was a Veela,” said a woman on the end of the table. Draco turned towards her. He knew she was related to the Selwyns—had to be, with that horsey face—but he couldn’t remember her name. “She said that the bond was the center and mainstay of her life, and she couldn’t have survived without my grandfather looking after her. How can you defend a different way, Mr. Malfoy? Don’t  _you_ need to same level of care from your submissive?”  
  
“And here I thought dominants were supposed to take care of their submissives, not the other way around,” Harry muttered to himself.  
  
Draco pressed gently down on his shoulder for a second, then faced the woman. “I would rather have a bond that can make me happy,” he said. “I can fetch my own food or have the house-elves do it.” He sniffed a little. “To a family with house-elves, why should a submissive be a slave?”  
  
“But it would be all right if they didn’t have house-elves?”  
  
The horsey-faced woman gave Harry a satisfied look. “You see what comes of letting them talk back, Mr. Malfoy? My grandmother would never have tolerated that.”  
  
“No, but your grandmother wasn’t mated to someone politically active, who tries to take care of the wizarding world even now,” said Draco, and sighed a little when he saw her blank expression. The most tiresome part of what Greengrass had asked them to do was simply repeating and repeating the explanations. “Your grandmother wasn’t mated to Harry Potter,” he tried to explain.  
  
“How could she be? He hadn’t been born yet.”  
  
Draco sighed again and turned to Greengrass. “We have your permission to go on and spend a bit more of the meeting discussing the bond?”  
  
“You don’t need my permission.” Greengrass gave him a sweet smile and gestured around at the other pure-bloods behind her, the ones who hadn’t spoken yet. “I’m sure they’ll find this all fascinating.”  
  
Draco grimaced a little.  _Yes, fascinating in the sense that they’ll look for weaknesses and try to tell themselves that I’m Harry’s._  
  
But it was much better than their simply disregarding them or attacking them outright, the way Maundy had tried. Draco turned back to his audience, determined to explain what he could.  
  
*  
  
The woman who reminded Harry of Aunt Petunia spoke up again, as though she didn’t like the way Helena had been controlling the meeting so far. “Surely you wouldn’t mind taking care of your dominant Veela, Mr. Potter? It would be easier than trying to take care of and heal the whole wizarding world.”  
  
“I wouldn’t mind it, maybe, if your descriptions of the bond made any sense,” Harry said, and felt the flickers in the back of his mind that he thought meant Draco was surprised. And pleased, hopefully. Harry wasn’t going to say anything bad about him, but he wasn’t going to hold back, either. “I was supposed to take care of him, you say. Well, he told me that a submissive was supposed to lean back and let the dominant take care of  _him_. And I would have to guard the Malfoy houses, and never venture outside them, and never do anything political, and raise the children. Except Veela also raise and make their children  _with_ their mates, and I never felt the kind of connection to the Malfoy houses that the bond was supposed to give me.” He cocked his head. “The bond is destined, his mother said, but then she seemed to think that I could be replaced with another mate. I don’t understand. What exactly  _is_ it supposed to be? How many of you think different things about it and don’t even realize that?”  
  
He felt Draco’s hand pressing down on his shoulder and stopped, panting. Only now did he remember that they hadn’t agreed they would reveal Narcissa’s part in trying to give Draco another mate. Harry grimaced. He could hope Draco didn’t feel betrayed by that.  
  
Leaning back against Draco and concentrating on the bond, Harry didn’t think he was. The bond was still quicksilver and faint and hard to read, but at least Harry knew he hadn’t made Draco rage.  
  
“Yes, those things happened,” Draco told the audience quietly. “I didn’t know what I wanted the bond to be. I was proud that I was mated to Harry Potter and then shocked when he didn’t react like any other mate. Well, what would have been the  _point_ of him if he did that?” Draco shook his head, a faint smile on his lips when Harry glanced up at him. “I couldn’t simultaneously have a mate unlike anyone else’s and a mate the same as everyone else’s.”  
  
Harry relaxed and nodded to the audience. “And I couldn’t have had a bond that was entirely unlike any other Veela bond, not if Draco was going to survive.” He turned to Helena. “Tradition should always command a certain amount of reverence, but we have to change and move forwards, don’t we?”  
  
“Yes, we do,” said Helena, and rose gracefully to her feet. “And therefore, I must announce my own unexpected bonding and marriage. To someone who is an equal I never expected to find, but can help the peace process, and thoroughly understands the traditions we revere.” She paused. “And who is Muggleborn.”  
  
That brought down the storm of controversy, but more muted than it would have been if she had simply stood up and announced that without giving them the example of Harry and Draco to mull over first, Harry knew. He sighed and sank back in his chair, glancing at Draco as he waved towards the seat next to him.  
  
Draco shook his head and remained standing. Harry shrugged, squashing down the warmth that opened up inside of him.  _I suppose if he wants to be ready for someone trying to hurt me, it makes sense for him to stay in that position._  
  
Draco looked directly at him, and nodded.  _I do_.  
  
Harry bit back the exclamation of wonder. If their thoughts  _had_ just touched each other’s, they weren’t going to alert anyone else of it.  
  
But he promised himself they would explore this the minute they were out of the meeting.


	38. Mates and Mindlinks

“I want to try something,” Draco said, almost as soon as they were through the front door of Malfoy Manor. He turned to face Harry and leaned a hand on his shoulder. Harry met his eyes and nodded.  
  
 _Can you tell what I’m thinking when I reach out to you like this?_  
  
Harry struggled not to blink. The thought was in his mind like something he had temporarily forgotten and then been reminded of, not exactly like a voice he heard. He supposed that would lessen the chance he’d mistake it for something Draco said aloud.  
  
“Yes, I can,” he said, and Draco clasped both hands and shook them back and forth like a child playing a game.  
  
“No, Harry, not like that,” he said. “Reach out to me in your head. I want to know what it feels like.”  
  
“It doesn’t feel  _that_ different,” Harry started to say, but stopped when he caught sight of the intense way Draco’s eyes were shining. For some reason, this really mattered to him, maybe because so few things about their bond had been usual, maybe just because it was different from what they had experienced so far.  
  
 _Yes, I think so,_ Harry managed, after some moments of flailing around and groping for a bond that wasn’t there. Harry finally hit on the notion of thinking of it as a silken ribbon of light connecting them when he remembered what Aloren had said about their bond being “tattered,” and then it was there as if it had been all along, filling his mind with sweet, tingling warmth, like a numb foot starting back to life.  
  
Draco’s eyes widened, and he stood so still for a second that Harry added,  _Are you okay?_  
  
Draco leaped into the air, bearing Harry with him suddenly, his hands under Harry’s arms and his wings beating as if they were powered by a spell. Harry only had time for a gasp before Draco spun him around so that Harry’s back was to Draco’s chest and Draco was nuzzling his face and neck insistently.  
  
 _Yes,_ Draco breathed.  _God, I have to fly you around and show everyone how proud I am._  
  
 _There’s no one here except your mum,_ Harry tried to protest, but Draco didn’t seem inclined to listen to his voice now that Harry was having less trouble reaching him. He flapped his wings hard instead, and they zoomed around the entrance hall, then up the stairs. Harry was panting. It was probably just about as fast as he could have flown it on a broom, but this time, he wasn’t doing it under his own power.  
  
And it was…oddly wonderful, for all that Draco’s wrists were starting to dig painfully into his armpits. There was a lovely sensation of warmth each time the wings descended so that they more or less surrounded Harry, and a roaring waterfall of magic around him that he’d never had on a broom.  
  
 _She’s the one I want to show,_ Draco told him, and darted through a high, arched doorway into a room Harry hadn’t been in before. They’d covered so much ground that they could have been on the third or fourth floor for all Harry knew.  
  
This appeared to be a combination of library and sitting room, and maybe something else. Harry caught a dizzying glimpse of small, round tables, and chairs scattered in comfortable groups, and free-standing shelves of books, and a triangular pattern of runes etched into the floor that joined with another triangle to form a star shape. In a large blue chair near the largest shelf of books sat Narcissa, paging through one of them with a frown.  
  
 _Look_ , Draco said, spinning around, and then seemed to realize that he hadn’t spoken aloud at the same moment as his mother raised her head. “Look!” he called instead.  
  
Narcissa glanced up, and Harry felt the rush of emotions through Draco’s mind. He was reading and understanding Narcissa’s expressions much better than Harry could have; he was all glinting strength and smugness and relief. Narcissa’s face went flat a second later, and Harry wondered,  _Did she really feel so chagrined about us?_  
  
 _She never thought she could be wrong,_ Draco told him.  _She was resigned to accepting you because I had, but she still thought Camilla would make me a better mate._ “Even though,” he continued aloud, “I could never have found as much satisfaction in speaking into Camilla’s mind as I do Harry’s.”  
  
Narcissa folded her hands in the middle of her lap and tried to look prim.  _You shouldn’t have said that about Camilla,_ Harry told Draco as Draco came in for a landing in the middle of the room.  _You’ve just made her more resistant to hearing anything we say._  
  
 _You still don’t know her as well as I do. Look at that tension around her eyes, her mouth. That wasn’t there a minute ago._  
  
Harry refrained from rolling his eyes.  _Whatever you say._  
  
Draco turned to grin at him as he set Harry on his feet, and smoothed his nose across Harry’s hair as if it was feathers he was grooming.  _So pleased that you’ve finally learned how to obey me._  
  
Harry was still opening his mouth when Draco turned back to his mother and bowed low with a little flourish, his hand clasped in Harry’s. “We’ve achieved the telepathic part of the bond, Mother,” he said. “I seem to remember you having particular doubts on the subject at one time.”  
  
Harry wanted to ask what that meant, but Narcissa was rising to her feet and looking them over with a leisurely appraisal that made Harry glad he was in touch with Draco’s mind. He would have thought it pure malice otherwise, without any of the saving uncertainty that Draco insisted was there.  
  
“Well,” Narcissa finally said, after long moments of a silence so deep that Harry was flinching defensively before it hit home that her words weren’t  _that_ hostile, “it appears you have. Perhaps I was wrong about Camilla.” She looked at Draco, and offered him a small, serene smile. “But not about the kind of mate that would make you happy.”  
  
Draco’s hand tightened on Harry’s, and he extended a wing along the back of Harry’s shoulder. “What are you talking about, Mother?” he asked, and added into Harry’s head,  _I should have known. She always wants to win. And she always thinks she’s right when she’s protecting me._  
  
 _Let’s go away and give her time to cool down, then._  
  
“You still needed a mate submissive enough to speak into your mind and let you control the bond.” Narcissa wrapped one hand around the other one. Harry  _did_ notice that her knuckles were white. “Telepathic communication can only be achieved between a dominant and a submissive who fit into the traditional roles. Perhaps Mr. Potter is not as yielding to you as Camilla would be—”  
  
“Thank  _Merlin_.”  
  
Narcissa took no notice of the interruption, focusing on Harry with a pleasant smile instead. “But he does have to have taken up aspects of the traditional submissive role if he was able to achieve communication with you.”  
  
Harry clenched his fists and said, “If you mean being able to be polite, and love Draco, then yeah, I have.”  
  
Draco had already opened his mouth to say something, but he went silent and blinked at Harry. Harry shrugged back at him, facing Narcissa once more. Her mouth had started to draw down, and Harry had the impression that that might not have been what she wanted to hear.   
  
“Submissive doesn’t mean what you think it means,” Harry said. “Maybe you think it does because the only submissives you knew were people like Camilla, who need permission to  _breathe_. But it’s different than that.  _We’re_  different than that.” He paused, took a deep breath, and said something that had been lurking in the back of his mind. “Stop it, will you? It’s hurting your son.”  
  
 _Harry_ , Draco said into the back of his mind, where Harry’s complaint had been, in a caressing tone.  
  
 _I’m sorry if you don’t like me saying that, Draco, but it’s true._ Harry took a long, aggressive step forwards. Narcissa seemed to have given up on getting any expression other than surprise to appear on her face. “Leave him alone,” Harry whispered. “At least. Or support him. You ought to be able to see when he’s happy and support him at least that much. Unless you care more about your ambitions and having your own way than about him.”  
  
Draco was making the oddest sound behind him, sort of like the silvery croon he had made before when he and Harry were working on the bond, but also deeper. His hands were sliding up and down Harry’s back, working under his clothes. Or maybe they were already there. It was a little hard for Harry to tell with the blazing pulse that seemed to be beating in and out of his head and eyes.  
  
Still, it was a long, long time, or seemed like it, before Narcissa bowed. “My regrets, Mr. Potter. Of course. Perhaps you have been a better mate for Draco than I thought.”  
  
Harry barely had time to nod in response to those words before Draco scooped him off the floor. Harry yelped a little and clung to the back of his neck as Draco’s wings beat urgently around them.  _Draco? Where are we going?_  
  
 _Bed,_ said Draco, and off they flew. Harry felt a little embarrassed knowing Narcissa was down there, watching them, and might know exactly where they were going.  
  
But the colored pulse was back, and Draco was crooning into his ear, relentlessly, while his words poured down the bond like a stream.  
  
 _Do you have any idea how much it pleases me when you stand up for me? And that you’re even willing to claim the title of submissive when my mother tries to throw it in your face?_  
  
Harry tilted his head back and tried to watch Draco’s expression, hard as it was when he was hanging down underneath him—and maybe as pointless as it was when he could feel everything Draco was feeling down the bond, anyway.  _I only said that because I have an entirely different meaning for it. It’s not like I agreed that she was right._  
  
 _But you still claimed it. You did it to defend_ me. Draco made the sharp silvery sound again, and rubbed his face against the back of Harry’s neck.  _You love_ me.  
  
Harry hadn’t put that word to it before. But it was hard, with the emotions vaulting all around him, not to recognize them. Or not to recognize something of his own in them. If what Draco felt was love, then so was what Harry felt.  
  
He swallowed.  _Yeah_.  
  
Draco’s wings blurred around them, and Draco swept further on and up, towards the distant bed.  
  
*  
  
Draco laid Harry on the bed in his rooms and then stepped carefully back, spreading his wings and turning as he stripped his shirt off. Harry gave him a confused look. He had probably thought Draco would simply crawl onto the bed and start having his way with him.  
  
But as far as Draco was concerned, this was the last few moments of their courtship. He wasn’t going to waste them. He wanted to show off to his mate, the way he hadn’t got much chance to do in the past.  
  
And Harry’s mouth was falling slowly open as he watched Draco turning, his wings regularly beating, making the strong muscles shift under the skin of his back. Draco tilted his head, feeling both his mate’s gaze like a warm caress on the muscles of his shoulders and Harry’s soft tumbling emotions.  
  
 _All that strength is for you,_ he told Harry.  _All for you, to attack or defend as you command, to protect you, to fly you around for the rest of your life. You never have to take another step on the floor again if that’s what you want._  
  
Harry’s response down the bond was incoherent, the telepathic equivalent of a mumble, but Draco didn’t mind. He spread his wings more, raised and lowered them, and wasn’t surprised, when he raised them again, to find that they shone with a silvery light. That hadn’t happened to him often before, but when he was courting his mate, it was only  _right_ that it should happen and make him all the more beautiful.  
  
He swung around again to face Harry, and tilted his head back so that Harry could watch the fall of his hair.  _It shines, doesn’t it?_ he purred down the bond, and if he was fishing for compliments, so be it. He hadn’t got as many of them as he would have out of a typical mating bond.  
  
 _It does,_ said Harry, and the emotions that rampaged out from him made Draco flutter his wings until his heart leaped and ached. There was enthusiasm there, and admiration, and something deeper than either.  
  
He began to hum under his breath, and then sing. Veela were known for screeching, but that was because most people saw them in their half-changed forms only in public, not in private with their mates. They could sing, too.  
  
And he did now, his voice filling the room with what he  _knew_ were rises and falls of liquid cadences. Harry was entranced as he stood there listening, and Draco lowered his voice, made it deeper.  
  
 _This is all for you,_ he said, and then he reached down and drew off his trousers. It was even easier than usual, when he was hovering halfway off the ground.  
  
Harry let his eyes dip for a moment down to Draco’s pants and cock. They lingered there for what Draco happily judged an appropriate amount of time before they rose wonderingly back to Draco’s face, and Harry got off the bed and came forwards with one hand reaching out. Draco caught Harry’s hand and nibbled at his fingers, turning his head back and forth to do so.  
  
 _Come on_ , said Harry.  _Let me…_  And Draco stepped back and waited for Harry to move, because he was curious to see what he would do.  
  
Harry knelt down and rubbed his face for a moment against Draco’s cock. That made Draco freeze and forget about displaying. He had actually stopped the breath in his lungs, and it wasn’t until Harry reached up and tapped him on the chest in concern that he let it go again.  
  
“Come on,” Harry whispered aloud. “Were you only displaying things I can look at but can’t touch? Or can I?” And his hand reached out and closed on Draco.  
  
Draco tossed his head back, fluttering his wings, drunk on the sensations of displaying for Harry, drunk on power, drunk on the fact that he would have his mate here for him now no matter what happened and he wanted Harry to touch him all over his body. He managed to gain control of himself when he would have exploded in an embarrassing way and reached down, drawing Harry to his feet as he kissed him.  
  
“Not like that,” he said, and although it was hard for him to put into words what he wanted even with the bond between them, Harry caught on and gave him a shining smile, standing up and reaching for the bottom of his own shirt.  
  
Draco watched him strip with such attentive eyes that he didn’t think he blinked once during it. He saw Harry’s collarbones and wild hair and scars and muscles with a dreamy feeling of contentment.  _Is that for me? All for me?_  
  
 _All for you,_ Harry shot back, amusement humming in his eyes and mental “voice,” and Draco stepped forwards and traced one fingertip over Harry’s collarbone just to see him shudder.  
  
Harry hissed and pulled Draco in to him, making him not only stumble but have to flutter his wings to catch his balance, and kissed him hard enough to make other thoughts desert Draco’s mind. There was a time to display for his mate, and a time to simply take him to the bed. He did that now, slipping his hands beneath Harry’s armpits again and scooping him up, moving him before Harry could protest.  
  
Not that Harry  _wanted_ to protest, from the look of things. He simply sprawled back on the bed and lifted his legs and arse so that Draco could see the heavy outline of his cock against his pants.  
  
Draco spread his wings and made a bubbling sound that he couldn’t even dignify by the name of croon. It was just there and wanted to come out of his throat, so that was what came.  
  
“Yeah, I thought so, too,” Harry said, grinning, and whipped his pants off, then reached for Draco’s.  
  
Draco knew he was the one, technically, who was supposed to be in charge. The dominant Veela always was, not least because Veela often mated so young that the submissive would be a virgin.  
  
But Harry was moving with quiet confidence as he put a pillow underneath his own arse, and stroked Draco’s wings—which sent disorienting flashes of heat through Draco’s chest and neck—and arranged himself on the bed with lube. It was only when he actually reached for his own arse with sticky fingers that Draco decided he had to do something.  
  
 _I want to prepare you,_ he sent down the bond to Harry, and tried to ignore the sheer whiny tone of it. Yes, perhaps it was whiny, but it was still true. And from the way Harry paused and gave him a thoughtful glance, perhaps acting like a brat was sometimes an advantage.  
  
 _All right,_ Harry said, with a little fillip of permissive yellow that would have been impossible in out-loud communication, and handed the bottle of lube to Draco.  
  
 _I didn’t even see you get this,_ Draco said, as he took it. He  _must_ have been disoriented not to notice Harry moving away from him to the bathroom, the most likely source.  
  
 _I summoned a house-elf to get it while you were sitting there purring with your eyes shut._  
  
 _I was not—_  
  
The amusement that flooded the bond at that was enough to tell Draco he wasn’t going to win  _this_ argument. So he leaned forwards and coated his fingers with lube and used them in the way that he knew Harry would have used them if Draco hadn’t intervened.  
  
Harry did tense up and take a few harsh breaths immediately after Draco’s fingers entered him, but he rolled his eyes when Draco hesitated.  _If I was going to want you to sop, don’t you think you would have felt that, down the bond?_  
  
Draco had to admit that made sense. He slid his fingers in further, and spread them apart, and Harry spread his legs in response. Draco blinked slowly, his wings fanning up and down. He had dreamed of this moment, and now he found that he couldn’t take his eyes off his own fingers. He couldn’t even define the feelings, the sensations, that rocketed up and down between his lungs and his heart.  
  
 _I can. Impatience. Get on with it!_  
  
Draco snorted and spread his fingers further, reflecting that the mental bond had as many advantages as disadvantages. And the other way around, of course.  
  
*  
  
Draco not wanting to hurt him was very sweet. It was the opposite of what Harry had once expected, when Ron was first telling him about the submissive’s duty to bond with the dominant. He had thought Draco would just take what he wanted, not caring about any pain he might cause, and Harry would have to put up with it to make sure Draco didn’t die.  
  
But Draco had reassured him that Veela knew how to give pleasure to their mates, and Harry was dying for some of that right now. The bond ought to have  _told_ Draco that, Harry thought grumpily, and writhed around Draco’s fingers for a time until Draco looked him in the eye. Then he nodded, and Draco fluttered into position and actually kept himself hovering there as he slid inside.  
  
He flopped to the bed a second later.  
  
So did Harry. He had known what it would be like, of course, or assumed, but the feeling of someone inside him was still overwhelming. He sucked in air, and reached down, and felt Draco’s hand close around his.  
  
Then Draco crooned, and fulfilled his promise.  
  
The pleasure struck Harry like silvery lightning. He flung his mouth open in a soundless scream as his head tilted back and the pleasure followed, filling every crevice of his being, seeking him out, not letting him get away.  
  
Draco chuckled—something Harry only knew because it came down the bond, since it was as soundless as Harry’s scream had been—and pressed achingly forwards. Harry knew he was inside him, and welcomed him, and wanted more. He tugged on Draco’s hands, and Draco obliged, dipping his wings to brush Harry’s ribs and collarbone at the same moment as he began to thrust.  
  
 _God._  
  
Harry was just never going to surface again, that was all there was to it. The pleasure was extreme enough to make him forget his own name. His head rang and shuddered with it. He reached out and took Draco’s fingers, and Draco kissed him on the back of the hand and set off more explosions in his chest and head and ears.  
  
Harry clawed for a moment at Draco’s shoulders, and Draco drew back with an amused chirp and let him do it. It made new bursts start in Harry’s fingers and radiate up to his own shoulders, and he threw his head back and cried out as he felt a new fire gathering low in his belly. He knew what  _that_ meant.  
  
“Come on.”  _Come on._  
  
The voices mingled and wrapped around him, the bond adding its own weight to the mixture, and Harry came hard enough to tighten all his muscles and make him fall back on the pillow with a loud grunt. Draco was with him all the way, the bond inside Harry’s thoughts and his wings brushing Harry’s ribs and flanks and adding small, new tingles just when Harry had thought he was beyond being subjected to more pleasure. He fell from a height that made hitting the bottom more like a crash landing, but he didn’t mind. It still let him roll his head to the side, dazed with how good he felt, and watch as Draco’s orgasm finished with a convulsive fluttering of his eyes and wings.  
  
Draco tried to catch himself first with the tips of his wings instead of his arms or fingers, as if he had forgotten that he was something other than a bird. He caught the mistake before he bent any feathers, luckily. Harry gave a tired chuckle as Draco wrapped his arms securely around him. Draco nuzzled into his neck and said something sleepy that Harry couldn’t make out.  
  
It didn’t matter, not when he had the bond to repeat the words.   
  
 _You’re mine. You’re mine. I’m so happy. You’re mine._  
  
Harry gently touched Draco’s head and ruffled his hair for a minute. Then he moved him over to the side, so they could sleep more comfortably. He was the one who guided Draco out of his body, and cast the spells to clean up, and soothed Draco’s discontented murmurs.  
  
And he was the one who kissed Draco’s neck and closed his eyes with his body shuddering in exquisite aftershocks.  
  
 _Merlin. That was something._  
  
Draco stirred once as Harry rolled away to put his wand down on the table next to the bed, and Harry rolled back and wrapped his arms around him again.  _Hush. I’m yours. You’re mine. I’m here._  
  
Draco had a hold on him as strong as a bird would probably have on its perch. Harry really didn’t mind that, either. 


	39. Questions and Quietude

“Ready?” Harry was the one asking the question this time, which felt strange. But Draco had remained near him most of the morning, and in contact with him at all those times, even if it was only with one feather at the end of his wing brushing against Harry’s arm. The Harry of a month ago might have put that down to the room at the Leaky Cauldron they’d taken over to prepare for this question-and-answer situation being small and cramped.   
  
But that Harry was gone, and Harry rather liked the person he was becoming. That meant waiting patiently until Draco’s gaze came back to him, wide and unfocused, and it meant also waiting until Draco’s eyes lit up and he made a sharp gesture with one hand.   
  
“Yes, I am,” said Draco. “Ready to show them that you’re all mine.” His voice had taken on a deeper, rumbling undertone most of the time since they’d had sex. Harry found he didn’t mind it when it made tingles of pleasure run up his spine and skin—and Draco touching him made that happen almost all the time.  
  
On the other hand, Draco was stalking towards the door from the room like a long-legged bird, and Harry could all too easily envision what would happen if someone tried to touch him, even accidentally.  
  
“Draco?” Draco halted at once, his body twitching responsively at Harry’s voice. “Promise me you won’t attack anyone?”  
  
Draco reached out and slid a casual hand up the wall. Shavings of wood curled away from his talons. “As long as no one touches you. Or insults you. Or lies about us. Or implies that you would be better off with another partner.”  
  
Harry stepped up beside him and took Draco’s hand in his, smoothing away the talons, the way he always could when he was touching Draco. “You know it’s more complicated than that. We  _called_ this meeting to discuss our bond. You can’t be angry at people for being curious.”  
  
“Can’t I?” Draco’s smile was dangerous, and Harry saw the ghostly flicker of a beak around his lips and teeth.  
  
“No,” said Harry. “Not when we called this press conference, and said that we would tell the press the truth about our relationship. It would only encourage them to write even more rumors about us, about how you’re an animal, or holding me prisoner, or can’t be trusted out in public. Do you want to make things worse for other Veela?” He paused, since Draco still didn’t look convinced, and added appealingly, “Do you want to make things worse for  _me_?”  
  
That worked. A shimmer of white light seemed to run in reverse up Draco’s face and hair and wings, and he crowded close to Harry and touched him again, but softly. “I was doing that?”  
  
“Not right now,” said Harry, and gave him a reassuring smile. “But it might turn out that way. Remember how many people still have those views about submissives needing to soothe their dominants if they get upset? I don’t want anyone thinking I should be doing that and getting angry at me because I haven’t.”  
  
Draco hesitated once, then nodded. “You don’t need that on top of everything else,” he said, and then cupped Harry’s face. “But I can’t stand to have anyone else touch you or imply they have a right to you.”  
  
“Don’t worry,” Harry said. “We’re going to be at enough of a distance from the crowd that I don’t think that’ll be a problem.”  
  
“They could still call things  _out_ that imply they have a right to you.” Draco’s wings gave another violent twitch.  
  
“You have my permission to stand behind me and look regal and pissed off.” Harry turned towards the door. “I’d think that would discourage them before they could start. Think of it as a preemptive strike.”  
  
“That’s probably true,” Draco said, and strode forwards with his stride springy and elastic.  
  
Harry hid a chuckle as he followed.  
  
*  
  
 _Mine_.  
  
Draco could feel himself calming down now that Harry had reminded him, gently, of where they stood, but that was still the word humming in the back of his head when he looked at Harry standing in front of the Leaky Cauldron, ready to address the other reporters and Muggleborns and curious pure-bloods they had called together.  
  
No one else should try to touch Harry. No one else should claim him. No one had  _better_ start a rumor that they had been Harry Potter’s lover on the side. Or before the war. Or during the war. Or ever in his life.  
  
Draco arched his neck and spread his wings. There were some people in the crowd who would take that as evidence of a satisfied dominant Veela, and think that therefore, he and Harry must have a completely traditional relationship. They were welcome to. Draco would laugh at them, and use their assumptions to take care of them before they could become dangerous.  
  
Yes, as much as meetings like this one increased the chances that someone would try to claim or touch Harry, and thus infuriated Draco, it did mean that Draco would also have the chance to see who the people interested in his mate were, and neutralize them before they could become problems.  
  
Foremost of the crowd, of course, was Rita Skeeter, spinning her quill between her fingers and eyeing them like a hungry shark. There were several other reporters, both women and men, who Draco didn’t know. The only one who looked a little neutral and unruffled was Xenophilius Lovegood of the  _Quibbler_ , and from the way his eyes immediately went to Draco’s wings and stayed there, he was probably only here for the magical creature angle.  
  
The crowd sprawled across at least half Diagon Alley, and was accumulating new members all the time from wizards who had come out to go to the shops or for some other reason. They were gaping like fools, too, even the ones who went past the crowd by edging up against the buildings. Draco sniffed. They might say they would have been as curious and a-goggle about any Veela mating that went against their expectations, but he thought it was all down to Harry being famous.  
  
 _They never want to leave him in privacy, even when they would get upset about anyone intruding into_ their  _lives._  
  
Draco fluffed out his wings a second later. Well, he had the power and the right—according to the hidebound—to  _make_ them leave Harry alone now. He would use it as long as Harry permitted him to.  
  
 _No violence,_ was all Harry said down their bond, brushing his connection across Draco’s mind like a handful of feathers, and Draco was happy, because that still left open lots of irritating and damaging ways for him to act.  
  
Harry rolled his eyes at him and turned back to face the crowd. Draco kept their link open, soft, and relaxed. He could send emotions as a warning if someone got too familiar with Harry and he was building up to an attack, and that would give Harry an opportunity to restrain Draco if he wanted to.   
  
“So,” Harry said, and looked from face to face. “I know that you’re here to hear about our bond, and how it will affect the peace process to have a Veela mate with me.”  
  
There was some stirring, and a few confused murmurs. Draco grinned viciously. They had thought they were coming here to ask questions about the bond, and nothing else. They would want to know how Harry could turn this into a political tool.  
  
And he was going to do it, and in such a way that it would function as a strangling chain about the neck of anyone who tried to make them act in a way they didn’t want to act.  
  
“I see our bond as special,” Harry said. “Private. No is one is ever going to know exactly what thoughts and emotions my Veela and I exchange, and that’s the way it should be.”  
  
A warm haze descended on Draco, one in which he might have agreed if Harry had asked Draco to let Daphne touch him. To hear Harry describe him that way, when he had never thought they would come that far…He glowed as Harry smiled at him, and then Harry turned back to their audience and spoke with a polite, determined expression.  
  
“But at the same time, it is also a bond between someone who has a high profile for fighting on Dumbledore’s side during the war, and someone who had a high profile in the Death Eater trials. Between someone with a Muggleborn mother, raised in the Muggle world, and someone who’s been in the pure-blood world all his life. I think those things are valuable, and can do some heavy lifting on the representation side to make it normal for everyone involved.”  
  
 _Dumbledore’s side?_ Your  _side_ , Draco told Harry.  
  
 _It’s not like I would want to claim credit for it anyway, especially considering how inefficiently he handled some of the war._  
  
Draco didn’t get the chance to ask what Harry meant, because Skeeter chirped, “But we can ask questions about private matters? We have to, if your bond is symbolic, you see. What else will permit our readers to understand it?”  
  
“Oh, we’re symbols,” said Harry, before Draco could explain exactly what he thought about that and where Skeeter could put her eagerness. “The way I’ve had to be for so long. But we’re also living people. Which means that we don’t have to answer your questions if we don’t want to.” He smiled at Skeeter. “And if we’re upset about something that we never said, which you choose to print in the papers anyway, we retain the right to sue. Like all living people.”  
  
Skeeter opened her mouth as if to say something, then grimaced and clapped it shut. It was Lovegood, of all options, who asked the next question in a slightly dry and dusty voice. “What would you say your bonding means for magical creature rights, Mr. Malfoy?”  
  
Draco arched his neck. “I would hope it would encourage other Veela with nontraditional bonds to think about whether they want to let others know. At least half  _our_ misery came from the implication that we were wrong or unusual for doing what we did. Or just plain unnatural. If others who might have been hiding under the usual dominant-submissive masks but are really different can take some power and hope from us, then explaining like this will have been worth it.”  
  
Lovegood smiled and wrote things down. He was the only one who looked perfectly satisfied with the answer to his question so far.   
  
Skeeter spoke up again. “What about the perception that Veela like their mates virgin? And the fact of Harry Potter’s numerous girlfriends before he bonded with you?”  
  
Harry’s cheeks flamed, but Draco caught his hand and answered before his mate could be overcome by the torrent of emotion gushing down the bond—or, worse, decide that he was going to be “honest” and tell Skeeter and her audience about things they had no right to know. “We don’t intend to address that. As far as his girlfriends went, some relationships are a matter of public record, and others are a matter of public  _rumor_.” He couldn’t help giving Skeeter a scathing glance. “Harry and I have discussed all the ones that he feels I should know about. The matter is now closed.”  
  
 _We never did really discuss them._  
  
 _I know you were never attracted to Daphne, and that was the one that mattered the most at the time,_ Draco answered curtly.  _And I know you aren’t going to go back to be with—Weasley, or Chang._ It was easier to bring himself to say Weasley’s name, now that he and Harry were bonded and he could feel Harry’s hurt when he insulted her.  _So we can discuss them later._  
  
 _All right._  
  
There it was, the slow, honey-gold curl of Harry’s delight in being with someone who would accept his statements at face value. Draco smiled at him. Yes, that  _was_ wonderful, but still better was being with someone who could discuss things with him down the bond and know in an instant what Draco really believed and didn’t believe.  
  
“Someone might want to be with the Great Harry Potter, though,” murmured Skeeter provocatively. “Or even  _you_ , Mr. Malfoy.”  
  
Draco looked at her, bored. He thought the bond settling had calmed him down, too. It wasn’t long before that he would have been spreading his wings and trying to fly into the audience at the implication that he didn’t deserve to be walking around free. “Of course they could. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to get the  _chance_.”  
  
“Let someone else talk, Skeeter,” said a woman Draco didn’t know, with a distinctive part in her hair, as Skeeter was opening her mouth to speak again. “Honestly, not everyone wants to know about their love lives.” She turned and addressed Harry directly. “Do you not mourn for the freedom that you lost when you became part of the bond?”  
  
Harry blinked. “No.”  
  
“But earlier, you were insistent about not knowing anything about Veela, and you hoped to be free and not caught in the toils of an archaic bond.”  
  
 _She’s for real, right?_ Harry asked Draco.  
  
 _I’m afraid so._  
  
“I never used language like that,” said Harry, and didn’t hide the roll of his eyes, despite how much it made the reporter look offended. “And I did resent the idea that everyone expected me to be overjoyed about the bond. I was resigned to doing the best I could and trying not to cause trouble, or cause Draco pain.”  
  
Draco had to extend his wing and brush it against Harry’s shoulders, because things were so different now. Harry smiled at him, and went back to staring at the woman in the audience. “But I’ve realized now that Draco isn’t some stereotype of a dominant Veela, either, wanting me to stay home all the time and control me. If he had been, then yes, I could never have done this. But he’s not.”  
  
Yet another reporter demanded, “Are you going to stop attending the political meetings now that you’re bonded? Take up the role of the Veela submissive?”  
  
“I just told you I wouldn’t,” said Harry. Patiently, but Draco could feel the snap in his voice, even though it was hidden, and the pressure roiling in the bond. “Please stop failing to listen to my words.”  
  
“What contribution do you think your bond can make to the peace process?” asked someone else. “Is this something you’ll have to explain to the Muggleborns who don’t understand it?”  
  
Harry smiled. “I hope it can help them come to some understanding of the wizarding world. After all, what happens if a Muggleborn wizard like me ends up bonded to a Veela and has no idea of what to do? That story might end tragically. They might not be able to figure out a way to handle the bond like Draco and I did, or they might have a more traditionalist mate. I hope we can provide a sort of role model.”  
  
The questions settled down after that, but Draco remained carefully poised at Harry’s side, alert, looking from face to face. They could look, as long as they didn’t touch. And they could ask questions, as long as they weren’t asking ones that pried too much into things he and Harry wanted to keep quiet.  
  
 _We already said what we would do then. We would just refuse to answer._  
  
 _That doesn’t mean we can’t feel angry about it._  
  
Harry snorted, and answered another question. Draco let his wing glide over Harry’s back again, to reassure them both.  
  
*  
  
Having someone that much in his corner, someone who wanted to fight for him, was exasperating sometimes. Harry occasionally felt that he spent more time curbing Draco’s instincts than he did indulging them.   
  
On the other hand, too much indulgence would have led to the sort of bond he’d wanted to avoid.  
  
And at bottom…  
  
Sometimes, it was good to have someone that much in his corner. Someone who trembled and bristled with anger when he was insulted, someone who wanted to fight for him at all times, someone who would fight with him but never urge him to do something solely for the good of another person, or be able to manipulate him—because the bond would let Harry know what Draco was really thinking and feeling at all times—or hold grudges against him because of who his father had been.  
  
 _Tell me you never thought about dating Snape._  
  
Harry had to laugh in his head.  _No, but he was someone I had to rely on more than I wanted to. You’re someone I can rely on without reservation._  
  
That made Draco puff himself up more than ever and his feathers stand on end while the shimmering silver glow ran across them. More than one person stared. But no one said anything, probably realizing already that that was one of the questions they wouldn’t answer, and Harry was able to go back to talking about the peace process.  
  
 _We can have some quiet time together, tonight._  
  
 _Looking forward to it,_ Harry admitted, and leaned back so he could feel Draco’s wing more strongly behind him, and smiled.


	40. Acceptance and Actions

“I wanted to ask you something,” Harry said, perhaps a week after that first meeting where they had taken the initiative and explained their relationship to the reporters like mature adults.  
  
 _Like Veela and mate,_ Draco thought contentedly, and looked up at Harry. “What is it?” The bond was soft and shimmering with emotion, so flickering and silvery that Draco found it hard to tell what Harry was feeling. Or what he was about to ask.  
  
The longer Harry waited, though, and the more silent he was, the more important it felt to Draco. He laid his book aside and gave Harry his full attention. Harry had been reading the book Draco had bought him on Veela and mates again, but he laid it aside with his own soft sigh when Draco cocked his head at him.  
  
Harry frowned as if he was considering a complex set of runes, and finally said, “The next time we—have sex, I want to be on top.”  
  
Draco spread his wings before he could help himself, and crooned. Harry stared at him.  _Well, what did you expect?_ Draco asked, speaking down the bond because he wanted to, and because there was no way he could convey the measure of his amusement and love aloud.  _A tirade?_  
  
 _I don’t know what I expected,_ Harry admitted, and reached out to run one hand down Draco’s right wing. Draco ducked his head and encouraged him to do that some more with little wriggling motions of the wing, so Harry did. The harder his hand rubbed, the more Draco had to admit he liked it. He added an encouraging chirp when Harry would have stopped.  
  
 _This is so unlike anything I expected, I still don’t know all the words for it,_ Harry added.  _I didn’t know the answers to half the questions that those reporters asked last week. Not until the words were coming out of our mouths, anyway._  
  
 _Good thing that you had me there to give the answers to the ones you couldn’t answer._  
  
Harry rolled his eyes, and Draco ducked his head and pushed it against him while maneuvering his wing closer to Harry.  _Do you want to go have sex right now?_ Draco added helpfully.  
  
Harry flushed a brilliant red.  _I mean—we need to prepare some more for the wedding, don’t we? It’s not like I’ll know the right thing to say to Helena just because, and Daphne might be there._  
  
 _Daphne will be at home,_ Draco disagreed.  _Where Helena agreed to leave her._  
  
 _We don’t know that she—I mean, we didn’t discuss—_  
  
 _We discussed Daphne not appearing in any place where the two of us were._ Draco leaned forwards.  _And I hardly think she would care to attend her mother’s marriage to a Muggleborn._  
  
Harry sat there as if he was thinking about this. Draco rolled his eyes enormously, and didn’t care if Harry saw him doing it.  
  
 _If you want to insist on changing our agreement with Helena now, for the sake of a daughter that she barely sees anyway, you can do that,_ Draco said.  _But neither she nor I would take it kindly._  
  
Harry opened his hand slowly. Draco knew that he wasn’t letting go of any lingering affection for Daphne, of which there had never been any in the first place, but he did think Harry was letting go of the conviction that there was something special and sacred about everyone, a little piece of good in all of them.  
  
Draco met Harry’s gaze, and waited until Harry was definitely looking at him, instead of past him at his nose or hair. Then he said, insistently,  _You don’t need to care about everyone on the planet to think of yourself as a good person._  
  
Harry’s smile took a minute to creep out of hiding, but it was sincere when it came.  _I know what it’s like to have gulfs dividing you from people in your family, people who should stand with you,_ he muttered as he leaned in to kiss Draco.  _I just didn’t want Daphne to experience that._  
  
Draco lifted a hand to toy with Harry’s hair at the nape of his neck, delighted with that sentence being in the past tense.  _And now maybe we can think about other things, instead of people who should barely occupy our time?_ One particular thing he liked about their bond was that it let them talk to each other without stopping the kiss.  
  
Harry laughed down the bond, and partially aloud if the tickle against Draco’s lips was any indication, and kissed him harder.  _Yes. Other things. Important things._  
  
From the way his hands reached out and smoothed down Draco’s wings, Draco thought he was going to enjoy those “important things.”  
  
*  
  
Harry hadn’t realized how much he could turn Draco into a pile of mush just by touching his wings.  
  
Of course, when they first bonded he hadn’t wanted to, and then it seemed Draco was always using his wings to shelter Harry, protect him, fly him around, or show off for him. Harry hadn’t particularly thought of his wings as sensitive, even though he had seen now and then that they were.  
  
But now Draco was lying on his bed on his stomach, with his wings spread, and Harry was learning exactly how sensitive they were.  
  
When he brushed the feathers along the top curve, Draco shivered and arched, and his wings quivered like the petals of a flower in Aunt Petunia’s garden. When Harry turned and slid his hand along the bottom curve, near where the wings joined Draco’s back, Draco turned, and Harry saw muscles that he thought were flight muscles bunching and sliding together. When Harry cupped his hands around a feather and blew on it, Draco jumped as though sparks were striking his nerves.  
  
He rolled half-over and stared up at Harry with such dazed eyes that Harry took pity and bent down to kiss him. Draco seemed to return to himself, mostly, as his hands slid up and down Harry’s arms, and he murmured, “You don’t have any idea how good that makes me feel. Or how good I want you to feel in return.”  
  
“Oh, I might,” said Harry quietly. His mind was ringing with echoes of Draco’s reflected pleasure, and he took a moment to bask in the realization on Draco’s face before he bent down and kissed the side of his face, then his neck, then his hands, and spread him out on his stomach again.  
  
Draco went with it, though he was almost twitching with the desire to kiss Harry. Harry smiled a little. Well, this was about what  _he_ wanted right now. They would do what Draco wanted another day.  
  
Draco jumped. Harry paused, thinking that he might have touched a really sensitive area by mistake where he was idly running his fingers along Draco’s spine. But Draco only surfaced and turned his head, eyes starving.  
  
“You want to do things to me,” he murmured, while he said the same thing down the bond, so that his loud and mental voices overlapped each other and produced a ripple in the middle of Harry’s mind.  _I’m so glad you do._  
  
Harry smiled again and crawled onto the bed. They had taken off their clothes as soon as they entered the room, and although Harry had been a little shy about it at the time, he was glad now. It meant he could do what he wanted to Draco even sooner.  
  
Draco slid a little to the side, half-crushing one wing beneath him, as if drunk, and Harry frowned thoughtfully for a moment. Then he nodded and whispered as he caught Draco’s hip and rolled him back onto his stomach. “Turn to face the pillows.”  
  
“I can’t see you?” Draco whined, even as he ducked his face into the sheets and obediently turned with Harry’s pushing.  
  
“Not this time,” Harry said, and smiled at him. He knew Draco would feel that down the bond, maybe even hear it in his voice, if he couldn’t see it. “Just think about all the other times that we’ll have to do that.” He ran an appreciative hand down Draco’s back, mostly to see it bunch and flex, and look at the smoothness of the skin, with the exception of two raised scars and the mounds where his wings rose.   
  
“And this is what I want right now,” he added, when he saw the motion of Draco’s lips as if he would object again.  
  
Draco relaxed with a hiss.  _That changes things, you know,_ he told Harry over his shoulder.  
  
“I know it,” Harry muttered, and began to reach for the lube.  
  
*  
  
Draco did his best to relax. He knew Harry wouldn’t hurt him on purpose, and the kind of pain that he might cause accidentally would bounce into the bond, so he could stop the minute Draco felt it and  _he_ felt it, too.  
  
And he knew that the vulnerability he was feeling was nothing compared to what he would have felt if he was on his back and his wings were pinned beneath him. Sometimes his Veela instincts were useful, and sometimes they could fuck off.  
  
Harry laughed warmly down the bond.  _This is a point where I want them to be around, so I can see what happens when I do this,_ he said, and even as he slid the fingers of one hand into Draco’s arse, he reached forwards with the other hand and tweaked a feather on one of Draco’s wings.  
  
Draco spread his wings involuntarily. They stretched out and flapped, and he bobbed a little on the bed.  
  
Harry laughed again, and Draco discovered another advantage of the bond: he could tell indubitably that the laughter was not  _at_ him. He dropped his head into his folded hands and exhaled. Everything felt soft and hazy.   
  
“Think about what it’s going to be like when I’m crushing my face into them as I move,” Harry muttered. “And I want to touch them  _all_ the time.”  
  
Draco let his wings droop fully open when he heard that. He could be appreciative of a mate who wanted to touch his wings all the time, he thought. Yes, he  _could_.  
  
He remained still as Harry slowly moved a palm up and down his back, and then Harry leaned forwards and let his face rest on the feathers. Draco shivered. He had always known his wings were sensitive, but he had thought light touches like the ones Harry had been using were the most pleasurable.  
  
But no. This was better.  _Far_ better.  
  
Harry was working in and out of him with his fingers, panting harshly, and Draco had always thought that, the first time he had sex with someone else inside him—if he ever did—then he would concentrate mostly on that odd sensation. Not even his bond with Harry could possibly prepare him fully for it, when it was so strange. But instead, he found himself leaning his head on his arms and living for the moment when Harry crushed into his wings. And he would be doing it soon over and over again, in constant thrusts.  
  
And then Harry was ready, and rose in a sudden rush of grace and power—Draco could feel the thoughts racing through his head—and pressed into him. Draco groaned, his attention shifting suddenly to his arse. He knew, he  _knew_ it wouldn’t hurt that much, but the sensation of fullness overcame everything else.  
  
His hand caressed the sheets, and a second later, Harry seemed to pick up on what he was thinking. His hand touched Draco’s wing lightly again, then curled as firmly around the edge as though he intended to take a handhold and steer Draco with it.  
  
Draco bucked nearly hard enough to throw Harry off, but Harry bore down with his knees and rode the buck. He was grinning and swearing at the same time, from the sound of it. Draco tilted his head back and screeched.  
  
Harry hesitated—one second. He seemed to turn to their bond in the next moment, as Draco had hoped he would, and realize that that screech had been like the cry of a hunting bird, far away from a sound of pain.  
  
He squeezed one more time, and then he was inside Draco and gripping both his wings, and leaning forwards again and again, pressing his check against them, running his fingers across back and front at once. He swayed away, but he would come back with the promise of pleasure always renewed.  
  
Draco shuddered and lifted his wings higher and higher, spreading them and thrusting them out. Harry responded with soft murmurs and harder thrusts of his own, and Draco rode the waves of sensation the way Harry was riding him.  
  
Draco gave a single hard push against the sheets. He was going to come, or he was going to fly. Maybe he was going to do both at once.  
  
He found he didn’t care which one it was.  
  
*  
  
 _This is wonderful_.  
  
The thought flashed and flared through Harry’s own mind, trailed like a comet by the thought,  _I know I said we could do other things, but I hope Draco wants me to do this all the time. Or at least most of the time._  
  
Draco squirmed and crooned underneath him, and Harry thought he had overheard the thoughts and approved. Well, the approval was more than implied, or Harry wouldn’t be here, he thought, as he hammered in again and crushed his face into the feathers at the same time. They shed a faint, fragile scent around him, dusty and thick with implications of sweetness. Harry found himself holding his breath, and he let it out again so he could breathe in more of that scent. He wasn’t going to hurt Draco. He had already learned that.  
  
He bobbed back and forth. His hips ached. His legs ached. Draco was twitching and flailing beneath him, as though he wanted to take off. Harry leaned a hand on his hip, and heard the thoughts racing around his head. He  _wanted_ to fly.  
  
“Do it,” Harry whispered to him, and _Do it_.  
  
The thoughts splintered in Draco’s head, thick and clogging, and twisted. Harry found himself catching his breath as Draco leaped beneath him and came, at the same time as his wings clapped open and apart and flapped down in a cupping motion.  
  
Harry smiled and closed his eyes. Then he started racing towards his own orgasm. His hand was on Draco’s wings, and he pinched and pulled gently at the softest feathers. He caught a glimpse, as the wings flapped up again, of Draco glancing at him over his shoulder. His eyes were softer than the feathers.  
  
He hooted, once.  
  
Harry shouted as pleasure raced up his cock, coming the other way. Draco was—was focusing that damn Veela pleasure-giving magic through his  _arse_ , and Harry was as helpless in the onslaught as he had been when he was on the bottom.  
  
 _Trust Draco to get his way about this,_ he had time to think, along with the feeling of being breathlessly whirled up and dropped like a winged seed, before he came.  
  
It was exhausting, actually. Harry rested his face on Draco’s wings just because he was so tired, and felt the last drops draining out of him with a complex shudder. His hands pressed and ground down on Draco’s hips. He knew he’d leave bruises.  
  
Draco gave a contented warble beneath him. His thoughts washed back and forth in Harry’s head, and Harry knew that he didn’t care.  
  
Harry finally pulled back enough to pull out. He could manage that, he fiercely told his trembling muscles. He could manage crawling to the side, and lying down, and closing his eyes, and slinging an arm over Draco’s back so Draco would know he was held and wanted and loved.  
  
He wasn’t sure he could manage much else.  
  
Draco turned his head towards him. His eyes said a lot. His fluttering wings said more. The bond said most of all.  
  
 _You are my love._  
  
And that was better even than “you are mine,” which Harry had thought he would begin the conversation after their wild sex by hearing.  
  
He smiled, and relaxed. 


	41. Marriages and Mates

Helena Greengrass had a taste for finery, Harry thought. She had been carefully restrained in her dealings with him, then. He had always thought she was one of the least fussy of the pure-bloods he had to negotiate with.  
  
Or maybe she thought a pure-blood’s marriage to a Muggleborn deserved gaudy decorations. The blazing black-and-gold banners draped over the trees could have been either.  
  
Draco put a hand on his back and ushered him past the trees, shaking his head. “I’m glad that the medallion I got for you isn’t those colors,” he muttered. “Even though you never wear it  _anyway_.”  
  
“With my track record, it would get broken in the next attack against me,” Harry said dryly, and winced a little as he thought of small crystals shattering and how much he would probably step on them. Honestly, he was lucky that he hadn’t shattered the Mirror of Erised in the struggle with Quirrell.  
  
Draco gave him a wounded glance. “As though I wouldn’t protect you from any attack.”  
  
“Not if you were giving me space, and the attack happened then,” Harry pointed out, smiling a little. This would have been a deadly serious argument if it had happened in the early days of their bond, before they had adapted to each other. “Then it would be hard for you to rush back in time.”  
  
Draco started to answer, but they came out from the walk of delicately arched and intertwining trees, and the sight of the wedding decorations seemed to startle him all on its own, without the necessity of picking up anything from Harry through the bond.  
  
There were tables with glamours cast on them to make them look as if they were made of gigantic emeralds. There were golden goblets and delicate, shining plates edged with pearls. There were delicate crystalline unicorns—fake, of course, Harry decided after a minute, they were probably glamoured ponies—trotting back and forth between the tables with dishes of candied fruit on their backs, offering them to the guests.  
  
“Tell me this isn’t traditional for a pure-blood bonding,” Harry muttered to Draco.  
  
“It’s only traditional for the ones that want to make a big deal of it.” Draco looked around with a critical eye that Harry might have thought was judging the decorations for their  _lack_ of gaudiness before their bond had been completed. Then he smiled at Harry, and Harry knew from the vibration of the bond that he was just as disgusted as Harry was. “Besides, those colors wouldn’t go with my hair at all.”  
  
He spread his wings, and several people turned to gape; even a few of the glamoured ponies halted for a second in their rounds, as if they didn’t know what direction Draco was going to fly in and wanted to be prepared. Then Draco lowered them again, and the pones went back to their rounds, and some people ceased to look at them—although they still darted glances their way and muttered under their breaths.  
  
 _You did that on purpose,_ Harry accused him as they threaded their way through the tables to find Helena.  _You’re a hypocrite when you claim that you don’t like other people looking at me._  
  
 _They can look,_ Draco said serenely.  _They just can’t touch_.  
  
Harry rolled his eyes again. Sometimes, he didn’t know why he bothered.  
  
*  
  
“My thanks for your congratulations,” said Helena Greengrass, before there were any, extending her hand.  
  
Draco kept a narrow eye on her as Harry shook it and said something meaningless that he could tell Draco privately later if there was any need for him to know it. It had occurred to Draco that perhaps Helena could set aside her ambitions for her daughter so easily because she was attracted to Harry herself.  
  
But there was no sign of that in the way she looked at or touched Harry, and a moment later, she steered the man leaning on her arm forwards. “This is my Howard.”  
  
He was a buttress of a Muggleborn, Draco thought, with a long dark beard and hair in which glints of red were apparent. And his magic hummed around him as though he were building up a spell at all times.  
  
It might not be obvious to Harry why she was going to marry the brute, but it was perfectly so to Draco. That much power would make sure any of their children would gain respect instead of being stigmatized as half-bloods, and it would make Howard a politically effective player, too.  
  
 _I know that because you know it,_ Harry told him gently and nodded to Howard. “I hope you’re in favor of Muggleborn integration with pure-bloods on a larger level than individual marriage, too.”  
  
“I am,” said Howard, and took a moment to study Harry before he shrugged. “I think you would have known that from the way I’m marrying Helena.”  
  
“I’ve learned not to assume, when it comes to Greengrass women,” said Harry.  
  
Draco held in his cackle, but just barely in time. He hadn’t known Harry was going to choose to say that! He extended his wing so the tip brushed across the back of Harry’s shoulders. Harry would understand the gesture and how much Draco was restraining himself, given the laughter in his head.  
  
“Well.” Howard smiled, now, as if he could understand the point of the barb. Helena might indeed have told him about Daphne and her problems with her, Draco thought, watching him. After all, he would have to be Daphne’s stepfather now, and he didn’t look like the kind of man Helena could simply drop into that situation. “Then I encourage your attitude.” He waved his hand at them in what Draco supposed could be a blessing. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Potter. And your mate.”  
  
His eyes pinned Draco. Draco smiled politely. If the man was waiting for Draco to fall on his face and apologize for his father’s actions during the war, as well as his own, he would have to wait a long time.  
  
 _Let’s go on, Draco._ Harry took the dismissal and faded into the crowd. He took a small sandwich from a tray on a pony’s back and added,  _Let’s just try to enjoy the party, okay?_  
  
Draco sniffed back at him.  _Of course I can enjoy the party. Especially since I get to show you off and remind people that they can’t touch you_.  
  
Harry only sighed, when once he would have scolded Draco, and Draco counted that as enough enjoyment to be going on with.  
  
*  
  
“Changed your mind, mate?”  
  
Harry blinked and turned around. He hadn’t actually asked Ron and Hermione if they were going to be at Helena’s bonding, although he’d known they’d received an invitation. But he supposed it made sense. Hermione would be making a lot of political contacts, and Ron would be tagging along with her, making polite noises and causing people to underestimate him.  
  
“About what?” Harry asked. He moved away from the dance floor. Draco was dancing with a few elderly pure-bloods who he apparently had to satisfy, according to etiquette, but he kept glaring when anyone came too close to Harry. It didn’t bother Harry that much. He was still an indifferent dancer, and too many people thought they should get a chance to slip their hands around his waist or down his pants.  
  
Ron looked up at the arching branches of the trees instead of answering. Harry did, too. He had only realized a few minutes ago that they’d been trained into making patterns of intertwined H’s, presumably for Helena and Howard.  
  
“You’ve changed your mind about the advantages of being mated to a Veela,” said Ron, and looked back at him.  
  
Harry snorted. “Yes,” he said. “Although it’s more that I came to realize I liked it. Not that I decided on advantages.”  
  
Ron only shrugged, still grinning. “So I won’t ask for details,” he said. “Only I want to know whether you regret it for any reason.”  
  
Harry thought about that, then slowly shook his head, and not only because he knew Draco could feel any regret down the bond and would be hurt by it.  
  
 _I can still listen even when I’m dancing, you know. I was almost born knowing these dances._  
  
“You were right about some things,” he said. “It’s nice to know that he’ll protect me no matter what, and there’s always someone standing on my side. And it’s nice to know that he’s not interested in me for my fame.”  
  
“And that’s it?” Ron sounded disappointed, for some reason.  
  
 _Maybe he just really wanted me to admit he was right._ Harry opened his eyes wide as he looked at Ron. “Well, I could tell you about other things that I’m grateful for,” he whispered. “But that would mean I’d have to tell you about other things that you and Draco would probably not want you to hear about—”  
  
“That’s fine, that’s fine!” Ron said hastily, jumping back with a wave of his hands. “I see what you mean. That’s fine!”  
  
Harry chuckled, but he did want to know the answer to one question of his own. “Why were you so intent on pushing the bond between me and Draco? Was it just because you didn’t want him to die? Because you were both pure-blood?” He thought that it being Draco would have made Ron more likely to oppose it, honestly.  
  
Ron was silent for a time. Harry knew better than to push him. Ron had what Harry sometimes called his “chess-playing look” on his face. He was considering a bunch of different things and deciding what he could tell.  
  
Ron finally looked back at him and said in a low voice, “Because I used to dream about it happening to me. A Veela coming and finding me and making me their own, no matter what. I even—I even thought that I wouldn’t mind if I was the submissive, because that would mean I had someone to notice  _me_. I used to dream about it when it felt like my parents never noticed me. You know?”  
  
“Yeah,” Harry said softly. One of the first things Ron had ever said to him was about feeling like he was in the shadow of his brothers. Yes, wanting to be special made a lot of sense.  
  
“So,” said Ron, and spent a moment looking out onto the dance floor as though he was trying to remove them both from the intense embarrassment that came from having this sort of conversation. But Harry had asked, and Ron had made the offer to speak, so it continued. “I was glad to think that one of my friends would get the chance to live out that dream if I wouldn’t. I wasn’t glad that it was Malfoy, but at least it was someone.”   
  
He looked back at Harry with a suspicious mistiness in his eyes that he hastily blinked away, and which Harry pretended not to see. “So. Mate. You  _deserve_ someone who can see you as special. For the things that make you that way, I mean, instead of all the things that people  _think_ are special about you.”  
  
“I always had you and Hermione,” Harry said softly. He almost didn’t want to say it because it sounded disloyal to Hermione, but he had to. “I’m sorry you never found your Veela.”  
  
Ron looked rueful for a second, and then he grinned. “But I found someone special, who loves me a lot,” he said. “And you know that it wouldn’t have been the same with me and Hermione, if we’d got together and you’d remained outside it all, mate,” he added. “You  _know_ that. So I’m glad you found your Malfoy.”  
  
He clapped Harry on the shoulder and walked away. Harry spent a moment looking after him, and didn’t start when Draco came up behind him and wrapped him in his wings. For one thing, since they had the bond, he knew Draco was there.  
  
 _What did he want?_  
  
 _To tell me why he was so intent on seeing the bond between us work_. Harry leaned back and closed his eyes.  _I love my friends, you know_.  
  
Draco nuzzled the back of his neck.  _As long as you don’t love them the same way you love me, I don’t have a problem with that._  
  
Harry nodded. Despite the confession Ron had given him, he never doubted that Ron and Hermione’s love was sincere. There was no reason to think that Ron would ever want to take his place in the bond, or Draco’s place, for that matter.  
  
 _Why wouldn’t someone want you as their mate?_  
  
Harry smiled at the tone of bafflement in Draco’s voice, and only murmured,  _I’ll tell you later about some of the things Ron and Hermione went through that would make them devoted to each other._ He turned his head as he heard cheering in the distance, near the front of the meadow that had been turned into the dance floor.  _I suppose that’s the actual bonding taking place?_  
  
Draco arched his neck once, beat his wings a little so he could rise into the air and see, and dropped back. Harry watched him with admiration. He had sometimes envied Draco his wings, but since he would share anything he found out because of them with Harry, envy wasn’t necessary.  
  
 _Yes, it is._ Draco held out his hand.  _Come on. We need to go up there, or people will talk._  
  
 _But you love people talking about us,_ said Harry demurely, letting Draco escort him with a hand on his arm nonetheless.  
  
 _It has to be the right kind of talk._  
  
Harry chuckled and let himself be led. He didn’t object, and it satisfied Draco. There were a lot of things like that in their bond, things one of them wasn’t wildly enthusiastic about but which worked for the other one.   
  
And Harry thought that was one reason their bond would last, when one that was constantly full of soaring ecstasy wasn’t.  
  
*  
  
“I have a gift to offer my wife as well.”  
  
Draco blinked a little. So far, the bonding had been perfectly traditional. The golden-robed wizard had spoken the right words, Greengrass and her Muggleborn had stood holding hands with intertwined bracelets clasped around their wrists and spoken the right ones back, and Greengrass had invited all the guests to a feast after the bonding.  
  
But now Howard was holding out a wrapped box, and Greengrass was turning around with an arch of her eyebrows that said, if her new bonded had planned this, he hadn’t bothered telling  _her_.  
  
“What is the gift?” she asked, and held out her hand, open-palmed, expectant. Draco held back a snicker with effort. Greengrass might not have anticipated this, but that wouldn’t prevent her from taking the gift as it was offered.  
  
“That would be telling,” said Howard, and nodded towards the box as he laid it on her palm. “Open it.”  
  
Greengrass promptly did, tweaking open the ribbon with an easy twitch of her fingers and dropping it to the ground. The paper seemed tougher, but only until she took out her wand and seared through it.  
  
Inside lay what Draco thought at first was fairly ordinary jewelry, a pendant shaped like a holly branch with three berries, although made in gold. And then he saw the way it unhinged, and that a potion slipped and glittered inside.  
  
Greengrass went still when she saw it. Then she tilted her head back, and Draco blinked again. He hadn’t thought he would get to see her face ever filled with surprise and delight.  
  
“You brewed it,” she whispered.  
  
Howard nodded solemnly. “Any questions you want me to answer, any time you want me to answer them.”  
  
 _Veritaserum,_ Draco realized abruptly, and felt Harry murmur in surprise beside him. Draco thought they probably had different reasons for being surprised, though. Harry would simply wonder why Howard would want Greengrass to question him under Veritaserum, ever.  
  
Draco knew the impact of that gift, the meaning. Howard and Greengrass hadn’t known each other as well before marriage as they might like, and Greengrass had asked for a means of knowing more and making sure it was the truth. And Howard had just given her that means.  
  
 _That is a little strange,_ Harry said, indignantly, into the back of his mind.  _Why does she get to question him and he doesn’t get to question her?_  
  
 _It’s possible that it will work both ways, but they wouldn’t be so foolish as to announce that in public,_ Draco pointed out as Greengrass snapped the pendant closed and fastened it around her neck.  _That would infuriate the pure-bloods, if they thought that a pure-blood was under a Muggleborn’s control._  
  
Harry sighed and shook his head a little, his eyes on the bonded pair as they turned and faced the officiating wizard.  _Then nothing really changes? They just hold this bonding as a sort of empty gesture, and the rest of the pure-bloods go on pretending that it’s not a significant announcement?_  
  
 _Some things have already changed by this wedding,_ Draco reminded him.  _Some symbolic things. The rest of the changes will be political, and it’s not surprising that Greengrass would want to hide them for a while._  
  
 _It’s strange that you call her by her last name._  
  
 _It’s strange that I can stand here calmly at all when she wanted to grab you for her daughter._  
  
Harry snorted into outright laughter at that, but luckily, it didn’t cause a disruption to the ceremony. Greengrass and Howard were really already done, and had turned away to walk down the middle of the pathway under the arched tree branches, with her hand resting lightly on his arm. Draco applauded politely, and Harry joined in a second later.  
  
 _I’m glad that we can unite the symbolic and the political meanings,_ said Harry, his hand rising to catch Draco’s elbow.  
  
 _Yes,_ Draco agreed, and then felt Harry go still. He followed his gaze, and realized that Harry was staring down the pathway at someone who had just entered at the opposite end. Draco felt his heart start beating a little faster when he saw who it was.  
  
 _Mother._  
  
*  
  
Harry remained lightly balanced on his toes, ready to move, as Narcissa came up to him. He didn’t think she would attack him in the middle of a public gathering like this, but she might do something more subtle. And she had surprised him before.  
  
Narcissa paused, said, “I was invited, but I was late due to my choice of a perfect gift taking some time,” and stared at Harry. Harry stared back, not knowing what she really wanted. It wasn’t as though she could read his mind with a glance, the way Draco could.  
  
Then Narcissa sighed, relaxation seeming to rumble all through her frame, and whispered, “I watched the ceremony from a distance. Your—there was greater peace and happiness in your expressions than in theirs.”  
  
Harry was tempted to say,  _No shit, because we aren’t people who only got together thinking about the political scene,_ but Draco nudged him in the side with his elbow and said,  _I think this is a peace offering_.  
  
“You believe I’m happy, then, Mother?” Draco asked gently.  
  
Narcissa’s breath wavered, but she met his eyes and nodded. Then she turned to Harry and, grimacing a little, reached out one hand.  
  
Harry took it and bowed over it. He felt as though he was holding an egg in his hand and trying to keep it from crushing it, but Narcissa moved away from him and the fragile tension eased a bit.  
  
“You might think about the location of your own formal ceremony,” she said, before turning to speak to a woman she apparently knew.  
  
Harry blinked and looked at Draco.  _Did you want a separate formal ceremony to celebrate our bonding?_  
  
Draco was watching Narcissa, and took some time to respond. But then he said,  _That’s less important to me than the fact that I can now have my mother at it._  
  
His wing tightened around Harry, and he turned to look at him.  
  
Harry looked back, breathless, rejoicing in the open, loving expression on Draco’s face, and stretched up to kiss him.  
  
It didn’t matter if people were watching. What they might think. Whether they would get upset. Whether they would approve or laugh.  
  
What mattered was the look on Draco’s face as he kissed back, and the silvery shadow his wings cast, trembling, shining.  
  
 **The End.**


End file.
